It was a quick two hour bus ride from North Macedonia into the capital of Kosovo, Pristina. Pronounced Prishtina. They get annoyed it you say it wrong. At the border, the woman who looked at my passport asked if I had Albanian roots. Uhh, what? Apparently I have an Albanian name! Someone on the bus asked what my name was, and agreed that it could be Albanian, haha. Weird! So once in Kosovo I booked another apartment, this one overlooking the central park in the city. It was maybe $35/night. Both Macedonia and Kosovo are the most inexpensive Balkan countries I’ve been to so far. My lunch was a soup from the place downstairs, 3 Euro for a huge soup, and then they brought out some salad and bread as well, it was basically for a full meal.
The thing about Pristina is there is almost nothing for tourists to do. I mean it seems like a decent place to live, there’s plenty of coffee shops, restaurants with outdoor seating, people out and about, but there is really nothing noteworthy to do. Of course there’s always wandering around and taking photos! It would a be a good time to get a haircut and do some laundry.
I did like wandering around Prishtina, it’s a very young city (as well as a young country) and the English is surprisingly good. I assume this is because Kosovo has had a lot of western and American influence in the forming of their independence (2008), especially the bombing of Serbia to keep them from invading and slaughtering ethnic Albanians in 1999. Ethnic Albanians currently make up 93% of the population in Kosovo, although there still are a few pockets of Serbs.
It was interesting seeing the US influence in Pristina, my apartment was located on Bill Clinton Blvd, there’s a statue of Bill Clinton, and another of Madelein Albright, there’s a Route 66 cafe, an Taste of America bakery, shops that sell American doughnuts, etc. This all feels a bit odd in a Balkan country where there is usually not much American representation outside of the odd ex-pat bar or something. People are also a bit warmer, I got asked multiple times where I was from (this also hardly ever happens in the Balkans) and if you say you’re American you always get a big friendly response!
So even though there wasn’t much touristy stuff to do, it was still a nice two days in Pristina. Plenty of coffeeshops and cafes to stop by. The architecture is kinda interesting, a good mix of Soviet styled buildings, some brutalist architecture and plenty of new, modern ones as well. There’s a quite a lot of construction going on, as Pristina seems to be getting a good amount of foreign investment. They
I also had a night to spend in the 2nd largest city inKosovo, Prizren. It is known to be more of the cultural capital, as it has history from the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman eras. It drizzled almost the entire time I was there, so I didn’t exactly do a whole lot here either. Pictured below is the famous Ottoman bridge from the 15th century. And in the photo after that you can see a church from the 12th century on the far left. After my one afternoon here it was off to Albania…
