Any traveler bewitched by Venice — its canals and gondolas, palaces and galleries, cathedrals and campaniles — has probably felt a tug on the imagination coming from the east where, just across the Adriatic Sea, the fabled Dalmatian Coast awaits, the storehouse of Venice’s maritime empire. For four centuries, from 1420 to 1797, Venice held sway along the Balkanized shores. Now largely the domain of Croatia, the Dalmatian Coast is laced with tiny Venices, old towns that kiss the sea along the edge of sunny limestone cliffs. Long the playground of European vacationers, the Dalmatian Coast has recently become the anchorage of choice for the yachts of celebrities, billionaires and movie stars, but cruise ship passengers are providing the real numbers.

Unable to resist the Venetian pull, we booked a sailing circuit of the Dalmatian Coast from Venice itself aboard the Seabourn Odyssey. Seabourn is noted for its high levels of luxury and service, with every stateroom a suite, private balconies for all and a free flow of drinks and Champagne from all hands. We could well have been latter-day Venetian doges on a triumphant tour of our medieval realm.

First unified as a province of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago, the Dalmatian Coast spans several hundred miles of spectacular seafront and historic trading ports from Zadar to Kotor that successively fell under the sway of Byzantines, Ottomans, Hungarians and, above all, Venetians, before Napoleon briefly made himself lord of the Adriatic in 1805. It was always a battleground for warring maritime powers, which quickly led to the creation of the ancient walled towns and fortresses that remain to this day. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the emergent states of Croatia and Montenegro have undertaken to make the Dalmatian Coast the “French Riviera of the Adriatic.”

They are succeeding. The Dalmatian Coast already offers a dozen dazzling ports of call, each combining stunning seacoasts with well-preserved medieval mazes. The Old Town at Split, the Dalmatian Coast’s largest port, spills sumptuously into the bay, its historic lanes and edifices still dominated by the palace and apartments of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who made Split his retirement home in the year 305. Just up the coast from Split, the port of Šibenik is also marked by a fascinating Old Town, encased in the Fortress of St. Anne, built by the Venetians in 1412 to ward off the Turks. Hvar, once a major trading post between Venice and the southern Mediterranean, has lately become a “Croatian Riviera” in its own right, attracting jet-set yachts to its pricey promenade and Venetian-style Old Town of castle fortresses, convents and arsenals. Far slower paced is the island town of Korčula, another Venetian outpost of growing popularity with a walled peninsular Old Town promoted as the birthplace of Marco Polo.

Korčula © Nikolai Sorokin | Dreamstime.com

Our two favorite ports of call along the Dalmatian Coast are Dubrovnik and Kotor. Dubrovnik is rightly hailed as the gem of the Dalmatian Coast. It possesses in abundance the essences of an Adriatic idyll. Dubrovnik’s Old Town is spacious; and its stone streets, orange-tiled roofs, lofty church steeples and superb city wall sweep down a steep bluff into the sea like a magic carpet. Sea walls and stone turrets replace the canals and gondolas of Venice, and the effect is still wonderfully medieval and picture-perfect. More than a mile in circumference, old Dubrovnik’s city wall has withstood bombardments from the time of the Crusades to the breakup of the Soviet Union, and it now peaceably hosts streams of visitors. Erected in the 16th century, these ramparts form a thick stone necklace festooned with 15 watchtowers, five bastions and two corner towers. We undertake our wall crawl counterclockwise, as prescribed, finally reaching the pinnacle, the Round Tower (Minceta), from where we contemplate the entire tangle of history and nature, harbor and palace, cathedral and fortress laid out beneath our feet.

The main entrance to Dubrovnik’s Old Town is a drawbridge outside Pile Gate, where Onofrio’s Great Fountain has marked the meeting place for travelers since the 15th century. The main pedestrian street, the Stradun (Placa), runs from here for half a mile straight out to the historic harbor. Along the way we call on a Franciscan monastery with a faithfully restored medieval chemist’s shop in one of its cloisters, and we stray at several shops occupying a series of symmetrical four-story row houses with arched doorways.

A restaurant on a street in Dubrovnik © Absente | Dreamstime.com

At the port end of the Stradun is a clock tower that has been keeping time since the Venetians arrived. Here Napoleon quartered his troops and their steeds a mere two centuries ago. The rector’s palace is a museum these days, and many of the former palaces and houses have become summer rentals, put on the market by half of Old Town’s 2,000 or so residents. This is a city of tourists, welcoming 2 million visitors a year, nearly half of them courtesy of the 800 cruise ships that call on Dubrovnik annually.

Many of those cruise ship passengers are tendered into Old Town’s historic port. Plenty of private yachts tie up here, too, alongside dozens of glass-bottom boats and tour vessels hawking excursions to the wild rocky islands just beyond the city walls. We are content to stay within this ancient burg, browsing the Algortan bookshop for English titles, sampling the best of Dalmatian wines at the D’Vino Wine Bar and enjoying a seafood lunch at Gil’s, which caters to well-heeled yachters tethered in the harbor. Time prevents us from visiting all of Old Town’s treasures, including a 12th-century cathedral funded by King Richard the Lionhearted, who was shipwrecked here after the Third Crusade, as well as the second-oldest continually active synagogue in Europe.

Above us looms Mount Srd, which sports a splendid bird’seye view of Dubrovnik at the end of a cable car run. Napoleon built the fortress that caps Mount Srd, but there are new conquerors on the slopes these days. Plans are underway to develop a Golf Park on Mount Srd, complete with an 18- and a nine-hole course, horse stables, restaurants, villas and hotels. Dubrovnik is already something of a media magnet, the current shooting location for HBO’s Game of Thrones and of a Bollywood epic to boot. Brett Ratner has flown in to film the latest version of Hercules, touting Dubrovnik as one of “the most beautiful places in the world.” Celebrity affairs with Dubrovnik go back at least four decades, to when Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were caught strolling the Stradun together.

Overnight we leave Croatia altogether and cross into Montenegro. The Bay of Kotor is a 17-mile inlet and UNESCO World Heritage site frequently described as Europe’s southernmost fjord. While not technically a fjord, the steep cliffs and pristine waters of this natural funnel are dazzling, as we discover during our early-morning entrance. Here the Adriatic knifes deep into the Dalmatian Coast’s mountainous interior, carving out a series of islets, coves and harbors. Kotor, a trading port since the 12th century, is nestled at the far end of the bay. We can see from the deck Kotor’s neatly compact Old Town pinned to shore by a 50-foot-thick curved wall of stone, a gift of the Venetians. Old Town’s sea gate entryway dates from 1555 and its clock tower from 1602. The interior lanes invite unhurried rambles from square to square. Landward, the city wall spirals upward another three miles, crisscrossing a very steep cliff face on its ascent to a 16th-century citadel. A church halfway up, built in 1527 by survivors of the plague, provides respite from our climb.

The ancient Venetian fortifications of Kotor in Montenegro © Absente | Dreamstime.com

Some 3,000 of Kotor’s 12,000 citizens live inside the triangular walls of this “little Dubrovnik.” The main square contains the icons common to Old Towns of the Dalmatian Coast: a rector’s palace, a town hall, an old arsenal, a bell tower, cathedrals, princely apartments and even (as a nod to Napoleon’s rule) a French theater. Most of these architectural gems have been artfully altered to serve the new overlord of mass tourism, but Kotor has the feel of a town being lived in as well as merely visited — its cathedrals shoulder to shoulder with small supermarkets, music schools and even a shoe shop where the proprietress minds the stray cats.

The Bay of Kotor is notable not only for its soaring peaks and Venetian architecture but also for two of its miniature islands, which appear to float on the shiny surface of the fjord, shimmering like medieval mirages. The islands of St. George and Our Lady of the Rocks are mesmerizing in part because of their tiny, jewel-like dimensions. A Benedictine abbey founded in the 11th century occupies the entire isle of St. George, while the Church of Our Lady of the Rock occupies the entire isle next door. Seabourn provides a shore excursion to Our Lady of the Rock. The isle upon which this 1632 church stands was created by hand, deposited stone by stone by passing sailors and fishermen in tribute to their protector, the Virgin Mary.

We slip past these phantasmagoric isles as we sail back out of the Bay of Kotor, the finest natural harbor between Greece and Venice, that evening. From deep fjords to medieval seaports, the Dalmatian Coast has shown itself to have few peers in the entire Mediterranean — the perfect destination for those spellbound by ancient Venice who wish to pursue its enchantments across a wider sea.

INFO TO GO

Seabourn Cruises specializes in upscale small-ship cruising (208–450 passengers) in the Mediterranean and beyond, with all-suite vessels, complimentary drinks and a no-tipping policy. Round-trip explorations of the Dalmatian Coast begin and end in Venice, with cruises running April through October. The Marco Polo Airport (VCE) is connected to Venice by airport shuttle buses to Piazzale Roma ($6.66, 20–30 minutes), Alilaguna boat shuttles ($20, 1–1.5 hours) and private water taxis ($150 for up to four people). Venice’s Santa Lucia train station is served by innumerable vaporettos (canal buses, $9). To reach the cruise ship docks at Stazione Marittima from the train station or Piazzale Roma, take the People Mover one stop ($1.30).

Where to Stay on the Dalmatian Coast

HILTON MOLINO STUCKY, VENICE Stately rooms fill this 379-room luxury tower, a former flour mill. The lagoon location faces the medieval skyline and cruise port, the ideal departure point for the Dalmatian Coast. Giudecca 810, Venice, Italy $$$$

HOTEL VESTIBUL PALACE Tucked into three royal apartments of Diocletian’s Palace, this seven-room villa is ancient Roman on the outside and ultramodern inside, the perfect dichotomy for enjoying Split’s Old Town. Iza Vestibula 4, Split, Croatia $$$

VILLA DUBROVNIK This 56-unit seaside villa maintains its own Venetian vaporetto to whisk guests to nearby Old Town Dubrovnik in princely style. Elegant rooms, spa, business services and bistro match the Adriatic vistas. Vlaha Bukovca 6, Dubrovnik, Croatia $$$$

Restaurants on the Dalmatian Coast

BOTA ŠARE Over the past two decades Chef Bodizar Šare built four coastal restaurants featuring traditional southern Dalmatian recipes. His oyster bars are to die for; Split is the latest location. Bačvice, Split, Croatia $$$–$$$$

KONOBA ĆATOVIĆA MLINI This one-time flour mill on the bay’s edge in the village of Morinj has been family-owned for two centuries and is renowned for shellfish, seafood salad, homemade cheeses and Montenegrin wines. 85338 Morinj, Boka Kotorska, Montenegro $$$

RESTAURANT NAUTIKA DUBROVNIK Even a pope dined here, in the former School of Maritime Studies, between the bay and Old Town. Chef Mario Bunda serves exquisite Adriatic delicacies, from lobster salads to scampi tails on polenta. Brsalje 3, Dubrovnik, Croatia $$$$