In Kosovo's Self-Preserving Tourism, Old Traditions and Thrilling New Adventures

12.03.2024 - 20:55 / cntraveler.com

Kosovo is one of our Best Places to Go in Europe for 2024, part of our global guide to the Best Places to Go in 2024—find more travel inspiration here.

Unlike the sky-scraping peaks of the Accursed Mountains, the sprawling walls of Prizren Fortress, and the generous hearts of everyone I met in Kosovo, the country’s national museum is comically small. It devotes one floor to Illyrian- and Roman-era archaeological finds; then upstairs, past the world’s largest staple mosaic (depicting Mother Teresa), it skips ahead to 1999. Mementos of the young nation sparsely populate the second floor—the declaration of independence; sheet music from the contest to create the national anthem—with the country's devotion to US politicians who helped end the war manifesting in some odd items, like the unremarkable Columbia rain jacket of former US Ambassador William Walker, who headed the Kosovo Verification Mission. In the aftermath of Yugoslavia's breakup, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population was subjected to brutal, widespread, and unceasing violence by Serbian forces—until a NATO bombing campaign led by the United States in 1999 paved the way for independence.

25 years after the War, as Kosovo’s nationhood remains fragile and Serbia has not recognized it as an independent state, travelers get the unique privilege of helping to preserve the millenia-old culture that Kosovars almost lost. The tiny country, wedged into the center of the Balkan Peninsula, deserves to be known for its cascading mountain waterfalls, warm heritage, snaking bazaars, and stunning sunsets over mosque-studded cities—just a few of the many highlights of visiting for a trip of cultural and outdoor adventures.

The fortress of Prizren, a city that was formerly the capital of the Serbian Empire. It's now cultural center of Kosovo.

More than 90 percent of Kosovars are ethnically Albanian, and most are Muslim—as becomes clear looking out from the fortress above the city of Prizren, over a skyline dotted with some 40 minarets. On a recent visit, the 15-minute walk here, straight uphill from the city center, brought me to a tangle of 1,000-year-old stone walls overlooking the city, where I watched on as the sinking sun lit the snow-capped Sharr Mountains in orange ombré. Home to 170,000 people, Prizren is considered the country’s cultural hub: picturesque bridges cross the eponymous river, and a warren of cobblestone paths squiggle out of the central plaza.

Down an alley, the Kukli Mehmet Bey Mosque and the Halveti Tekke, a 350-year-old center for Sufi dervish ceremonies, sits across from an 18^th-century nobleman’s house with a stilt-raised Ottoman living room. I was admiring the elegant, centuries-old buildings, with their wood-framed windows and