Bijela, Herceg Novi
Bijela is a coastal town in Herceg Novi Municipality, Montenegro. It is north of Herceg Novi, by the Verige strait of the Bay of Kotor. The 2003 census recorded a population of 3,748.
The chronicler Andrija Zmajević claimed that the 16th-century Pope Sixtus V was descended from a family originating in the area of Bijela. According to Andrija Zmajević, the future Pope's father, Piergentile di Giacomo, was born in the village Bjelske Kruševice near Bijela and moved to Italy to escape the Ottoman conquest.Bijela is the home of the Jadransko brodogradilište Bijela, , the largest maintenance and repair shipyard dock in Montenegro.
In December 2001 the turbo-electric car ferry Alexander the Great was towed to the shipyard in December 2001 to be converted into a cruise ship, but the project came to a halt and it was not until January 2005 that the ship was towed away.
