At the shore of Herceg Novi, Forte Mare vaults out of the sea and into the sky. While there are no official records, it is taught that King Stjepan Tvrtko I of Bosnia placed the fortress' first stone in 1382. Under its imposing stone face, the creeping prickly pear cascades down the wall within a leap of the promenade.

In the 16th century, Christian missionaries returned to Europe from Mesoamerica with the creeping prickly pear as a curiosity, where it was then spread throughout the Mediterranean by sailors. When Ottoman travel writer Evliya Çeleb visited Herceg Novi in 1664, the plant had naturalized. He described the city in his travelogues Seyâhatnâme as "a very solid and fortified city, so it is impossible to show or describe it!? It is surrounded by sharp cliffs and moats of hellish depth. It is a very high and beautiful city!" The bay's unique microclimates are ideal for the creeping prickly pear, leading to its current listing as a national invasive species.