Day 1: Cross and find a place to sleep

We arrived in Kosovo after a quick visit to North Macedonia. We spent some time at the border trying to persuade the insurance seller that we should not pay the insurance for a lorry and that our car was just a personal vehicle. But he didn’t budge, and we had to pay an agonizing 70 euros! Based on his table, that was more than for a 15-person bus! We didn’t think 70 euros was too much for car insurance entering another country but we knew that as in North Macedonia, we wouldn’t spend too much time in the country, and that made it worse.

Since it was getting dark soon, we didn’t waste any time and started looking for a place to sleep immediately. We drove by the Gadime Cave but it was already closed, so we continued further and took some side roads where we were looking for a place to stay. While we were driving, it started raining lightly so we didn’t want to leave the car on some field so we wouldn’t get stuck. We ended up parking on a wide enough dirt road far away from any main road and stayed there for the night.

Day 2: Bears, Pristina, and rainy Peja

We woke up to a lovely morning and set off early towards the Pristina Bear Sanctuary. We didn’t have much planned for Kosovo and spotted this place on Maps two days ago. Along the way, we stopped for a short visit to the Orthodox Monastery Gračanica. This Monastery was built in 1321, it’s one of the UNESCO sites in Kosovo, and if I remember correctly, the entrance was free. There are many frescas inside the church and there is also a large garden surrounding it. This church is Serbian and the place had Serbian flags everywhere so we didn’t even know which country we entered.

Since the sanctuary was still closed, we used the time to make a coffee, breakfast, and tidy up the car a wee bit. A few stray dogs came to greet us in the morning so we gave them some leftovers. The place was really nice and the entrance was just $3. We learned that the bears were often used as a prompt to bring people to restaurants etc. and were tied or in a cage by the entrance or by the road like an advertisement. Here we also confirmed that Iran has small bears exactly in the area near Yazd where we spotted one during one of our hikes. It was a nicely spent morning and definitely worth the small detour from Pristina.

Pristina was then the next stop on our list. We parked near the central hospital and walked to the city center. Our first stop was the National Library of Kosovo “Pjetër Bogdani”, sometimes called the ugliest building in Europe (it doesn’t look the nicest but people need to calm down).

Not just being named one of the ugliest buildings in the world but also the National Library of Kosovo is connected to several controversies regarding its architecture since the Serbians accused the architect of building the domes based on the Albanian national hat "plisi" (they don't like each other very much).

We then walked around the center, stopped for a coffee, and snapped a few more photos. We finished by visiting the Cathedral of Saint Mother Teresa and headed back to the car because it was about to start raining.

We planned to make it to a town called Peja in the western part of Kosovo. We made it there by nightfall but it was raining heavily by then. We were looking for a place to sleep but since it was dark and raining we decided to stay in the town and just camp at some parking lot. We stopped for a beer and dinner in one of the local restaurants since we couldn’t cook in the rain. Since it was still early, we returned to the edge of the town where we saw a supermarket and a KFC and stayed around, having some more snacks, and using KFC’s wifi.

Day 3: Leaving for Montenegro

It was raining heavily the whole night and it really tested the waterproofness of our camping shell (not bad, Clare did well covering it with sealant). We woke up early but the weather wasn’t good, so we decided to head for the border and instead drive into Montenegro and possibly escape the bad weather.