Prizren, Kosovo

We hadn't originally planned on visiting Kosovo, but we met a lovely guy from Kosovo at our hostel in Tirana and he recommended we visit Prizren, a historical city in Kosovo's south. It was more or less on our way so we got on a bus and headed to Prizren. This was followed by an eventful border crossing (it turns out we hadn't been entered into the Albanian police system by border control when we entered from Greece - this caused great suspicion and resulted in our whole bus waiting for about 15 minutes while we were interrogated and Interpol were phoned etc etc. Later we giggled at the idea of us being Kiwi / Australian Spies.)

Arriving in Prizren after dark, we found ourselves in a pretty and bustling town, surrounded by hills and with cobbled pedestrian streets and lovely bridges crossing the small river through the town. Immediately we were reminded of Bosnian cities Sarajevo and Mostar, probably because of the similar Turkish influence - we later learned that Turkish is widely spoken in Prizren, as well as Albanian and Serbian (all three are official languages there).

Like other places we have been to in this part of the world, the word "Kosovo" echoes of terrible news broadcasts and conjures an image of oppression, violence and ongoing tension - in the back of our minds was a lurking idea that we might arrive in a place filled with nothing but pock-marked buildings and traumatised citizens. As usual, this was completely wrong and we found a city where people were out and about, just getting on with their lives.

We were excited by the return to Turkish-influenced food and became instant regulars at this great local restaurant

Cat in a collapsed building (left) and building with "thank you" written on the side to countries who have recognised Kosovo's independence (right)