Kosovo

Pristina and Prizren. A young, proud country with Ottoman bridges, a brutalist library, and the best dinner of the trip at a place with no menu.

We drove into Kosovo from North Macedonia on the E65, and the border at Blace took about fifteen minutes, which is quick enough that we didn't have time to think about it. Pristina was a surprise. The city is young, loud and proud, and the Newborn monument is repainted in new colours every year. Bill Clinton Boulevard runs past his statue, and beside the Newborn is a portrait of a woman's face built from twenty thousand medals, honouring the women of the war. We stood in front of it for a long time before we said anything at all.

The next day we drove to Prizren, which many people call the prettiest town in Kosovo. Ottoman houses are stacked up a hillside along the Bistrica river, and the Old Stone Bridge crosses the water beneath them. We climbed to Kaljaja Fortress for the view over the red roofs, then wandered down to the silversmiths near the Shadervan square, where you can watch the craftsmen work and buy a piece if you like. We ate flija, the layered Kosovar pancake, at a riverside terrace, and it was everything we'd hoped for.

Back in Pristina, the National Library stopped me in my tracks. It's a 1980s brutalist building wrapped in domes and metal lattice, and it looks like a piece of science fiction that landed in the middle of the city. Later, the Ethnographic Museum showed how families lived in the old days, and the Old Green Market was full of farmers selling honey and cheese.

Dinner that night was at Renaissance, the restaurant the whole city talks about. Three brothers run it, there is no printed menu, and the house simply sends out ten or so dishes: ajvar, cheeses, pickles, slow-cooked meats with mushrooms, warm bread and wine. It's cash only, and it is small and loud and generous. We came hungry and left having eaten more than we thought possible.

Before we left Kosovo we stopped at the Gračanica Monastery, a 14th-century Serbian Orthodox church with original frescoes, and then at the Bear Sanctuary next door, where bears that were once kept in restaurants now live in forested enclosures. It was quiet and moving, and it was a short detour on the way out.

Reflection: Kosovo is a country that rewards curiosity. Pristina is a city that wants you to see it, and Prizren is worth the drive. Eat at Renaissance, and go hungry.