My son and I flew to Kosovo with Adria Airways to visit my daughter, who is working there with an aid agency.

We had a brief stopover in Lyubljana in Slovenia.

The scenery in Slovenia is impressive and the settlements look homely and orderly without being regimented. Well worth a proper visit to sample the mountains and rivers.

We arrived in Pristina (called Prishtina locally) at 15.40hrs where we were soon ushered across the tarmac to passport control, manned by a polyglot police force of Dutch, Turks, Italians etc.

KFOR troops are everywhere, in and around the airport.

The local unofficial currency for 10 years was the German deutschmark (DM), after the Albanian populace rejected the Yugoslav New Dinar (YUN). On September 1999, Bernard Kushner made the DM legal currency. From January 2002 the Euro will replace the DM as the only currency used in Kosova.

The drive to Pristina was notable for the numerous potholes in the roads and the sight of thousands of satellite dishes on the buildings of the city.

After settling in, we drove to the Amalfi restaurant in the Dragodan district, home to many of the International community. The open balcony of Amalfi holds a good vantage spot over Pristina, although the best views are beyond the city looking onto the mountains. In the darkening, but still clear sky, smoke drifted from a fire along the tops of the peaks as a military helicopter patrolled over the open plains in silhouette.

The steak was tender, but pale and flavourless. The rest of the food was passable, but certainly not memorable.

As we ate, a group of four men tried the doors of each car on the roadside below. Someone called the police on a mobile and they arrived just after the thieves drove off in an old banger. They went in pursuit, but didn’t look too keen to catch them.

Thursday,

After a good lie in, we visited friends of my daughter’s and went for a walk in the hilly woods of Gërmia near Pristina. These are mainly beech and I think, hornbeam.

The woods are densely covered, but here and there, stray bombs from the recent conflict have left stands of blackened trees and bomb craters. Warning signs tell you to keep to the paths as a lot of ordnance still lies either undetected or live.

Blackened Trees               Bombed Serb military base

A building variously used as a communist party hotel, refuge for Bosnians Serbs after the war in Bosnia, and a Serb police and military base, was bombed out and shot up.

At the entrance to the woods, there is a decent café with a roofed outdoor section. We had a glass or two of peach juice before visiting the WW2 memorial in another local park called Bregu I Diellit (Sunny Hill). This has the look of inner city deprivation with local youths and graffiti decorating it.

We tried Pinocchio’s that evening, high up in Dragodan. The views from the top balcony were excellent. The food was better too and the Slovenian Merlot was quite drinkable. I’m told the Kosovan variety is OK too.

Friday.

We had an invitation to breakfast at Kebaptoria Nora. It is popular with locals and internationals, is very clean and offers a good variety of meats grilled to order. The kidneys and various sausage are excellent. The cow brains are one of many local delicacies (not imported from the UK). There is chicken, but it is mostly imported frozen from Brazil and not very good.

The grilled peppers and chilli peppers are beautiful and there are salads to accompany the meats. I particularly liked the drinking yoghurt too.

That afternoon, we visited Gadime to see the unique marble caves. The caves were discovered by a local man building an extension to his house. While digging out the foundations, he literally fell into the cave.

What makes this cave system unique is the naturally occurring marble and horizontal growths of crystal on the cave roofs. Mind you, there is a rumour another such cave has been discovered in Kosovo.

There are guides to take you around the approx 1500 metres excavated so far. Thousands of stalagmites, stalactites and other shapes formed by the marble and crystal cover the ceilings and part of the floors. Much of the floor has been concreted, somewhat spoiling the effect.

The guides like to attribute anthropomorphic characteristics to some of the formations. Many are reckoned to resemble the likeness of legendary Kosovan heroes or the national emblem, the eagle.

Some of the structures have been damaged, the guides claim by Serb police, because they were considered to be politically inflammatory. Many are clearly broken off by souvenir hunting tourists though.

When we reached one large structure resembling three figures, the guide suggested it was a mother and her two children. With a grin, he added, "The father has gone to be a refugee in Germany."

This cave system is thought to extend to 17km on three layers. The bottom layer is flooded and thought to be connected to a lake a few kilometres away.

              The unique horizontal growths           Marble formations

                   More views of the caves       

Outside the caves, litter is piled up around the entrance and the little creek nearby. Despite that, numbers of frogs croak noisily from the creek, where deeply tanned gypsies sell cheap trinkets to parties of schoolchildren.

Above the caves, we climbed the hills to enjoy the views over the plains, other villages and the mountains beyond.

There are many flowers here, including celandine, rock rose, convolvulus and also wild strawberries and thyme.

  Gadime village, viewed from above the caves.   The surrounding countryside.

In the village, a local storekeeper offered me a fist-sized chunk of beef ham as a gift, but I paid him anyway. It is actually quite tasty and nothing like biltong.

We took a detour to drive through one of Kosovo’s newest towns, Ferizaj. It is full of shops selling shoes, ceramics and bathrooms. The roads have more potholes than you would believe possible and the whole place is a giant dust bath. You can imagine what happens when it rains.

Whilst there, we saw one of a few motorised bandsaws, apparently invented by local gipsies.

Motorised bandsaw.  

At a junction, traffic was held up by a KFOR convoy waiting for one of its number to rejoin it. Until it did, the troops disembarked, armed and ready for action.

Back in Pristina, we wandered down to the market Tregu I Gjelbert (Green Market) and got some good fresh vegetables and a lovely fresh cream cheese. On the way back, we stopped off at a butchers shop. Here you can only get beef and lamb. The lamb is whole, but you can get a leg for about 25DM. If you buy half a lamb, you get to choose between the head or the liver as well.

In the market and elsewhere about town, you will see men with wheelbarrows. They will carry your shopping back home for you for a small fee. Most furniture companies will only deliver to the door. If you live three floors up, these chaps can be hired to carry the furniture up to the flat.

The lamb was beautiful with roasted vegetables and garlic.

Saturday.

Next day, we headed off to Peja, but were taken on a detour to the village of Prekaz near Skenderaj. Prekaz has become a shrine to the Jasheri family who fought a three-day battle against some 5,000 Serb troops and police. Over thirty members of the family and over seventy Serb soldiers were killed in the battle.

The head of the clan had been a thorn in the side of the Serbs since the early 90s and was probably targeted as an act of retaliation.

The farmhouse was riddled by bullet holes and shell holes and it is difficult to understand how they lasted three days.

A graveyard outside the village has the family buried in lines. Large circular wreaths about 75cm across, covered in greenery and plastic flowers and reminiscent of shields, mark each grave. You can see many such wreaths, usually in small groups, indicating the graves of villagers or UÇK troops all over the countryside.

The Jasheri family graveyard. The family bread oven; about the only thing left intact.

My daughter subsequently visited the remnants of the Jasheri family and was moved by their quiet acceptance of their great loss and lack of bitterness.

The next village close by along a rutted track, has a new memorial, set up just the week before on 13^th May 2001, commemorating the Meha family, also massacred. A group of desperately poor children and their mother hung about hoping for a few coins. The Meha men, son and father, fought against Serb-Yugoslav police in May 1981. During this fight four policemen were killed and seven injured; the police using tanks and helicopters to finally subdue and kill them both.

The newly erected memorial to the Meha family.

We continued on to Peja on a badly potholed road, passing three burnt out tanks.

Eventually, we stopped at a once grandiose communist hotel for lunch called Istog at Burim. There was an attempt at a semblance of normal service, but the place was dilapidated. The speciality of the house is fish, which can be seen swimming in the moat surrounding the hotel. The terraces were full of diners, but somehow we did not feel comfortable there. The state of the toilets may have had something to do with it. Actually, the public toilets are pretty grim wherever you go and most are never cleaned.

We got to Peja and found a restaurant. No sooner were we ensconced, when the electricity went off. That was it, no electricity, no can cook. We moved off and found another restaurant with a generator near the UNMIK compound. They did pizzas, which were OK.

It rained heavily while we were eating, and as it was getting late we cut the visit short and went home. There is a famous river near Peja worth visiting. Another time perhaps.

On our way back, we were stopped by Italian KFOR troops who searched the car for arms and checked papers. The current ethnic Albanian uprising in Macedonia was one justification for this initiative. Car theft in Kosova and Europe another. A perennial joke in circulation here is that there is supposed to be a sign in Pristina airport saying "Welcome to Kosova, your car is already here."

Sunday.

We had another traditional Kosovan breakfast at a burek café called Bosna 2 on Mother Theresa St. There is a choice of freshly made cheese or meat burek. The meat tastes similar to that in a Cornish pasty.

Drinks are fruit juices, cans of Coke or yoghurt. It is all very cheap. 0.50 DM for a yoghurt drink, 1.50 DM for canned drinks, 2 DM for juices, 0.60 DM for 100 gm of burek; 200 grams is enough for one person.

We picked up some other pastries from a cake shop and drove to Tudjevc, near the Serb border. We had to pass through Gracjanice, a Serb stronghold, which means passing through a Swedish KFOR checkpoint. They are fairly thorough and it took 25 minutes before we could pass through.

We were told by an Albanian that you can tell Serb villages from Albanian villages by the number plates on the cars and the fact that in Serb villages there is no litter.

Serbs use old Yugoslavian number plates while Albanians use the new Kosova number plates beginning with three numbers, KS in the middle and ending with three numbers (e.g. 123 KS 421).

Another difference for now is that Albanian houses have new roofs due to war damage, whereas Serb houses suffered less damage and tend to have their original roofs.

In Albanian inhabited areas you can see extensive development taking place. It’s estimated that there has been more development in the last 2 years then for the previous 20 years between 1979-1999.

Albanian grocery shops are open at least 20 hours a day, while in Serb villages they trade for just a few hours a day.

More obvious in Serb areas is the use of Cyrillic script on signs.

Just outside Gracjanice, there is a large reservoir called Badovc where dozens of men and families were fishing or bathing on its shores. Trout, pike, perch and zander appear to be the main quarry.

Further along the road the Russian KFOR contingent hold a number of checkpoints, but generally just watch you going by.

The last 10 km to Tudjevc is up a wild track, sometimes grassy, sometimes muddy. It winds up over beautiful green hilly country passing a fortified Russian outpost on the high ground. The village is as sleepy as villages get, with a café, a mosque and a tiny two roomed school.

We wandered over the hills and visited an abandoned farmstead. There was little military action in the area and is not reckoned to pose a threat from landmines.

The Tudjevc hills.  Abandoned farm.   A working farm.

As we drove back, a couple of Apache attack helicopters roved along the road, probably based at the vast American Camp Bondsteel on the road from Ferizaj to Gjilan. It took 9 months to build and reputedly takes 15 minutes to drive across.

We had a Chinese meal this evening at the Golden Road in the town centre. The vegetables were nicely cooked and the chicken and beef dish (No 26 on the menu) was OK. The wonton soup would have been good if the wonton cases had been edible.

Desserts are unbelievably expensive, 17DM just for apple fritters.

Monday.

Today we were going to visit Prizren, one of the few towns left in Kosovo with a rich architectural heritage. It is a good two hour journey from Pristina, but a world away otherwise.

First stop was to a local orthopaedic practitioner. My son in law had injured his neck and visited him earlier and now needed a follow up session. He was very pleased with the results. Payment is typical of Islamic practitioners; whatever you can afford.

Most of the town lies beside a fast running river, which tumbles down the hills. On the opposite bank, there is just room for a line of houses and restaurants. Behind them, the hills rise steeply and some old buildings creep up the slopes, including an Orthodox church, a castle and a mosque or two.

Taking a narrow route, we walked upwards between the tiny houses towards the castle. Several times we had to find another route as razor wire sealed off a section due to unexploded ordnance. KFOR notices warned of mines in many of the houses.

The mosque with the church in the background.    Damaged and mined buildings.

We soon found that the castle was currently out of bounds as the German KFOR troops were using it as an outpost.

Undaunted, we kept on walking until we reached a vantage point above the castle. Not much to see there, but there are great views of the town and the paths are quite pretty there. You have to sensible about keeping to the paths, but you can see which are being regularly used.

A Prizren farmer.    Prizren viewed from the old quarter.

A lot of medieval civic and religious buildings were destroyed or damaged by the Serbs before they left, but many have since been rebuilt.

  The riverside, Prizren.     Patriotic painting in a Prizren museum.

Prizren traditionally was home to Muslims, Christians and a branch of the Sufis, also known as the whirling dervishes. The Sufis have a large and impressive mosque in the town, which sadly we did not have time to visit.

It was suggested we have dinner close to the Albanian border, by a large lake called Vërmicë. The lake was created by the Albanians some thirty miles inside their country, but encroaches a couple of miles into Kosovo for much of the time, to the great annoyance of the then Yugoslav federation. However, when the dams are opened by the Albanians, the lake can disappear from Kosovo for months.

We drove up to the border for no reason other than nosiness. On the way back, we heard a couple of explosions. High above, we saw puffs of white smoke. It may have been an exercise or warning shots to three men crossing the border in a small boat.

Stopping by the lake, I tried spinning for zander or pike, which I could see chasing fish fry, but kept snagging drowned teasel plants in the very shallow margins instead.

   Artillery smoke over the border.   Kosovan anglers.

At a lakeside restaurant called Liqeni (literally Lake) we had a choice of live trout penned in the fast running river torrent, or fresh zander from the lake. I picked out a zander around 3 kilos and we sat on a platform over the river with a bottle of acceptable local wine while we waited.

The zander was coated in flour and just deep-fried. I expected it to be greasy, but it was crisp on the outside and simply out of this world. One of the best fish dishes I have had anywhere in the world; simple but piping hot and so tasty and wholesome.

We sat there watching the sun setting behind the hills over an idyllic setting.

The restaurant on the river.

Tuesday.

This was going to be a quiet day mooching around Pristina. My daughter and son in law had to go back to work, so the pair of us wandered all over Pristina looking for what we could find. We passed the bombed out Post Office and carried on past a line of money-changers before swinging right into a number of smaller streets.

Although there was much damage caused by the Serbs and Allied bombing, there are still a number of old Ottoman buildings left in the town.

Ottoman architecture in Pristina.

The market is worth a visit. The produce is usually very fresh even though most of it is imported from Macedonia. Its one of the few places you can get fresh chicken. The vendors will kill and dress them while you wait.

Most transactions are in quantities of at least one kilo. Asking for one apple or three tomatoes causes a little consternation, but the friendly stallholders will oblige.

The local supermarket is another kettle of fish. Service is in the best pre-Glasnost Russian tradition; no effort spared to break into a smile or a sweat to help the customer. It’s even worse if you are a local. My daughter reckoned that if you speak in one of the major European languages the staff usually become friendly and helpful. I tried it and still got scowled at.

Back on the main thoroughfare, I had to smile as we passed a street café with around 20 Indian policemen, enthusiastically tucking into beefburgers. These happy Hindus looked delighted to be sinning, many miles away from any threat of remonstration or penance.

The rest of the day was spent resting and cooking another lamb dish.

Wednesday.

After a late breakfast, we drove to a little-known Mirusha waterfalls about 1½ hours from Pristina. Unless you know someone who knows where it is, it is unlikely you will find it.

For directions from Pristina, take the road towards Peja, passing the airport. Just before you get to Klina, take a left turn towards Gjakova. Within 3 km take another left turn onto a dirt track opposite a bakery, then drive for 3 more km past a small hamlet to reach the river valley.

It is possible to walk there more directly from the main road by parking close to the bakery.

To drive there, you will need a good 4X4 vehicle and will take 20 minutes from the road.

The falls pass through a deep gorge into a lush valley. Three local men sold drinks from a small marquee in a meadow. They had a samovar, but it was unlit when we arrived.

Walking up the river from the small meadow, you encounter a large circular pool with the first waterfall. A couple of boys were fishing with the ubiquitous stick and string. I did see some trout, but forgot to bring my rod with me. Next time.

Two views of the first waterfall.        Wild flowers on the cliffs.

Taking a path to the side, you can join a cliff path to the next fall and two others quite easily.

The 2nd waterfalls. The 2nd and 3rd waterfalls.  Above the 3rd waterfall.

Wild flowers and herbs are abundant and add to the scenic impact of the surroundings.

We stayed a while and some local boys offered to show us the other falls and some caves further up the cliffs. We declined, partly because we had to get back to Pristina for a dinner invitation and partly because we didn’t feel like doing mountain goat impressions. However, if I get a chance, I will go back there.

The local men reckon there are sixteen falls, although not all are accessible. The caves were once occupied by the ancient Illyrians and I gather that little work has been done by archaeologists, but enough to confirm they were settled by the Illyrians.

The men said we were the first Brits they had seen there, but a few weeks before, two German KFOR soldiers visited the place. The next day there were four and in subsequent days the numbers multiplied exponentially. There were a handful of other people there, locals and visiting police.

The meal in Amadeus restaurant back in Pristina was pretty good. Again it was in the Dragodan district and I had a squid dish, which was fine.

The next morning we left for the airport in good time, but found almost all the roads out of Pristina blocked by roadworks. When we did get through, we were stopped by a police checkpoint, but they let us continue when we explained we were going to the airport in a hurry.

We had enough time in Slovenia to pick up a few bottles of fruit and herb spirits, not unlike slivovic, but not as throat ripping as that can be.

Kosovo is not easy to get around, unless you can get a car and even better still, a guide. There is public transport and it is fairly reliable, but if time is limited, having your own wheels is a must.

Unless you know someone who is intimate with the area, it is unlikely you will find some of the places mentioned here. Don't bother to write by post as the postal system is still highly unreliable, but the guide we used can be contacted on:

VEBI KOSUMI

FAZLI GRAJÇEVCI Str. 5/6

PRISHTINA

KOSOVA

TEL: ++ 377 44 159 860

FAX: ++381 38 541 719

E-mail: vebik@yahoo.com