Peja In Your Pocket

Straddling both banks of the Bistrica river at the foot of the awesome Accursed Mountains, the small city of Peja (aka Pejë, and Peć in Serbian) is less than two hours west of Pristina and just a few kilometres east of the Montenegrin border. Probably founded by the Illyrians, and known in Roman times as Pescium, the city became hugely important to the medieval Serbs, who based the head of their Orthodox Church on its outskirts for several centuries. Heavily bombed by both the Serbs and Nato forces during the 1999 conflict, when almost the entire Albanian population fled into the mountains or neighbouring Montenegro and much of the town was reduced to smouldering rubble, Peja has been picking itself up and dusting itself down of late. Now a peculiar mix of Albanians, Gypsies and Italian KFOR troops, Peja offers visitors a refreshingly different weekend break away from the chaos of the capital as well as providing a handy springboard for journeys into the aforementioned mountains.