“What's up?

A walk along the part of Kosovo in Via Dinarica offers spectacular Balkan landscapes, magic stories and shocking memories of recent history in this area

There are mud-covered stone bunkers on the hillside at my right, just away from the ridge line marking the Albania-Kosovo border. On my left, the view is not only clear but surprisingly beautiful.

I am able to look down again in the small mountainous village of Gacafer, where I had slept last night, to look through the deep greenery of Decani's Grizzard beyond, over the dense forests of pine trees and pastures that explode with pink and yellow wildflowers, and to look to the 2,461m - foot [2,461 m] peak of Cpela and the rough peaks of the mountains of western Kosovo.

We are in the ninth phase of Via Dinarica Kosovo, a 75-mile walk path, with 13 phases, across this historic site. The road relates to Via Dinarica, a Balkan path that runs from Slovenia to Albania. Kosovo's section opened in 2015, but was recently repaired and re-launched as part of a three-year project of 1.2 million pounds financed by Italian agency A ICS.

During the Kosovo war, there was a Yugoslav barracks -- the brutal conflict between the Kosovo Liberation Army (known in the country as KLA) and Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia -- which ended with a NATO air bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. KLA fighters launched unexpected attacks on the border ridge here, and weapons were smuggled into Kosovo to be used by rescue fighters.

The barracks have long been gone. Today, a handful of locals in Gacafer wave red Albanian flags outside their homes, along with Kosovo's blue ones. They care for their sheep and warmly welcome the traveling ones, who exchange travel stories as they enjoy the burek and Rugova cheese in the picturesque guest home.

I would like the stones here to speak”, says Uta Ibrahimi, my mountain guide. Uta is the founder of Butterfly Outdoor Adventure and was an integral part of the Via Dinarica Kosovo project. It is also the first person from Kosovo to climb Mount Everest, doing so in 2017. And on May 10th 2025, when it stood at the 8,586m peak of Canchenjunga in Himalayas, Ibrahim became the first woman from the Balkans to climb the 14 8,000m mountains of the world. Uta turned into a heroic reception at Pristina airport. “I made for myself, but also for my country”, Uta says. “not only for Himalayas images”.

As we descended into a meadow, we were surrounded by blueberry bushes; our boots touched the strawberries and the wild carrots. I had arrived in Pristina's capital a few days earlier. I passed by the statues of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole; by new cathedrals and centuries old mosques. The brutalist brilliant and strange architecture draws attention here mostly the National Library of Kosovo, formed by a pile of exposed concrete blocks surrounded by metal and crowned with domes.

Via Dinarica connects the municipalities of Pec, Decani and Yunik in western Kosovo. To start our adventure by walking a 64-mile trail to Via Dinarica we drove to the town of Peja, after which the cursed mountains are erected as fortress walls.

We started in the third phase, with alpine view of the sun and green slopes rising to prominent peaks. Red and white signs led us along narrow trails towards the peak of Hyla 2,403m, on the border between Kosovo and Montenegro. On the one hand, the ridge significantly descends to Kosovo's Balkan pines and through green valleys to the mountains of Albania. On the other hand, there is an almost vertical decline as far as Montenegro, through broken and exposed limestone rock.

I ate a barrel of spinach for lunch at the top of Hayla, sitting next to the dense flowers of the starlike edelweiss as the alpine berry rolled upward. We slept in ERA Lodge, a mountain hut run by Fatos Lajci, an passionate environmentalist. «Everything that is in Europe, we have here», he said; brown bears, wild pigs, wolves and even the Balkan lynx, which is in serious danger of extinction, but from time to time has wandered near the Leic's Kurdish cameras.

As we left the following morning, a shepherd sang songs of love and lost heroes for his flock, and we were reunited with Via Dinarica on a newly built section of the path. As we descended into a meadow, we were surrounded by blueberry bushes; our boots touched the strawberries and the wild carrots.

Just a few days later, when we arrived at the Watch Tower Tower in Milishevc, a building designed as an old stone tower, we met another traveling man. Here, we had enough meatballs, accompanied by rakia, “per three-way”.

The border with Montenegro soon became the border with Albania. We walked near the memorials for the fallen KLA soldiers. The heavy rain and fog cloud cloud clouded the appearance, but limestone monodeness penetrated, and wild flowers challenged clouds with sprays of color. When we arrived at Gacafer, the sun was shining on the tractors and goats of this remote village.

In the evening, I had time to pet Utta for history. It's full of tales; for cymbals taken as gifts of Valentine's; of pillars shot down dangerously at 8,000 meters; of loved ones lost on mountain pages; or in war; of emotional days on top; and ecstatic nights dancing at festivals.

Abraham was 15 when the war broke out, but she speaks with contagious positiveity. We had to stay inside for three months bombing, and you never knew if it was the last day of your life,” she says. We had to cross walls to escape the police. All that idea, of waiting for that moment that they would come and who knows what they would do to you made us just stronger and more willing to live. Then, when you are free, you see no restrictions. ”

From the Gacafer, we head for Stervica 2,656m high. It is a large peak surrounded by heart - shaped mountain lakes and snowy pieces. This side of cursed mountains is more dramatic than the border with Montenegro, with soft green replaced by strong gray. On the 2,400 - foot [2,400 m] sign, we walk on bright limestone tablets with liquor. At the top, a Kosovo flag waves over a trigonometric point bearing Albania's two-headed eagle. There is a metal sign with the KLA head and a view on Kosovo's field. Our descent is extremely beautiful, walking along the isolated lake of Djedavica, through the fields of blueberry bushes, on pastures filled with yellow flowers.

This place has a soft beauty. In the scent of the mint that feels in the meadows, at the sound of the whistles on the hills, in the brightness of the flowers of the edelweiss on the high ridges, and in the heat of the wells, where the bouquet is abundant, and the strong coffee.

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