View from Prizren fortress. Very cool place.

Tourism status: zero magnets for sale.

It’s an arduous journey into Kosovo, but a worthwhile one.

The most beautiful monastery I have ever seen is outside of Prizren. Very difficult to get photos inside, so here is the second stop, Peć. Both have NATO checkpoints, and both require passport surrender.

 

It’s impossible to capture the sheer scale of Kotor. This is the best my phone could do. Montenegro, in terms of history, is home to the writer of The Mountain Wreath. Perhaps the country’s dramatic landscape spurned the equally dramatic poem.

I was stupefied by the sea-level view of Kotor. I have never seen anywhere like this in my life: not in Norway, not in Alaska, nor anywhere else as dramatic. I felt as though my eyes did not have time to fully process. I want to go back, and to climb the long way up to the fortress. The photos available of Kotor are bullshit compared to what it looks like in real life.

Perast is home to a cool story. Budva is the Russian Cancun. End Montenegro.

A hot walk around Počitelj, likely a future UNESCO site. Enjoyed the lack of crowds while it lasts.

The now-famous Stari Most, blown to smitherines by the Bosnian Croat who protested his ICTY verdict by drinking acid in court and killing himself last year. An asshole, but definitely a Balkan one.

Shit got real for me here, between Višegrad and Mostar I found myself standing in front of two bridges to which have been dedicated thousands of words, in hundreds of books. This trip was really emotional for me on a lot of levels; these places are ones I have wanted to see for many years. Many things that seemed out of reach to me years ago are not so anymore, and I felt that gratitude every day of this trip, to this place I had devoured in books and film, and now, in the flesh, and stone.

Dervish house at Blagaj.

Croatia across the river at Una. I decided to skip Croatia this trip (been there, done that), but you wouldn’t know from the photos.

Jajce, birthplace of the former Yugoslavia.

Travnik Fortress… and cheese. Also home of Ivo Andrić.

A long drive for a beautiful overlook at Tara. We also saw some forest scorpions… awesome.