"Is No Problem!"

Day 1- Prishtina, Kosovo

Or rather, Evening 1, October 16th. Landed at airport. Found apartment. Slept.

Day 2- Skopje, Macedonia 

Got the 9:30 bus to Skopje.


It took awhile to get into town, as traffic was snarled by some sort of demonstration. Steeled for the gantlet of "taxi" drivers at the bus station, we were relieved to see the first person in the crowd was Mirce, our Airbnb host. The apartment was great, almost like a lake cabin, even though it was in the heart of the city.


 

We had some lunch on the patio of Cresha Bar nearby, and then just walked around,














 We checked out City Mall (which could hold its own against any mall in the states). Dinner was Shopski Marak. There was music, with one diner serenading his party with several selections. The last half of the meal, a stray kitten parked herself on my chair behind me, not begging for food, just hanging out and purring.

Day 3- Skopje, Macedonia

Enjoyed a byrek at Silbo, grateful that the best bakery in town was a short walk away.
We went to Universal Hall, which has been closed for years due to structural problems. We popped our heads in, and just at that moment, and English-speaking young man named Teodor arrived, and gave us a little tour.

 

Walked around and looked at more stuff.













We happened upon a graffiti tribute to one of my all-time favorite recordings:












We noticed that many of the stray dogs had ear tags, part of a spay/neuter program, which is great, because there are so, SO many stray dogs and cats in the region, it is staggering.

Day 4- Kratovo, Macedonia

Caught the early bus to Kratovo, a town built in an extinct volcano crater.There to greet us at the bus stop was our Etno House Shancheva host, Stevce. How he knew we would be on the bus, I don't know, but there he was. 

Etno House is 300 years old, and he has been running it as a guest house for about 6 years.


 He welcomed us with fruit compote, coffee, homemade brandy and a welcoming heart. I speak almost no Macedonian, and he speaks little English, but we just enjoyed his hospitality. Part guardian angel, part favorite uncle, Stevce is a Kratovo booster, archaeology & geology enthusiast and Slow Food ambassador. 

He brought us via bus and a 45 minute walk to the Stone Dolls, a nearby natural rock formation.

 

 

Day 5- Kratovo, Macedonia

After a huge homemade breakfast, Stevce took us on a tour of the town.

 

 

 

After that, we hung out for awhile in front of his rock shop, with his cats. He has 3 at the guest house, and 4 near his shop. He said that he quit smoking so he could use the cigarette money for cat food instead.



Then we spent the afternoon walking around.













The final morning brought another epic breakfast, prepared by Valentina, Stevce's wife.Yes, that is coffee, wine and brandy on the table.

Day 6- Strumica, Macedonia

This was the Wild Card portion of the trip. The stop was intended to break up a long-ish stretch, and maybe give us a chance to do some laundry. All I knew was the guidebook described the area as being "little visited". Works for me! When booking it, I wasn't sure about buses, so I figured it might be a case of paying A Guy With A Car to take us there. Turns out there are buses that go there. OK, we'll take the bus. Well, the only direct bus left at 6:30 AM. Stevce arranged for A Guy to take us to the next town, where buses run every 30 minutes or so. When we got to the next town, there was another Guy With A Car who offered to drive us all the way to Strumica (pronounced stroo-MEET-sa) for about $27. Sure, why not? I'd just as soon save some time, stimulate the local economy and help out a guy with a wife and two kids (or at least photos of someone's wife and two kids). 

Our apartment was brand new and super swanky.
 
 We spent the rest of the day just walking around, and were pleasantly surprised. It has a huge pedestrian area/ plaza in the center, and the world's coolest Walk/Don't Walk signal:

Day 7- Strumica, Macedonia

We tried to get to the fortress on the top of the hill.








We got there, but somehow took the difficult way, which was even more difficult on the way down. Afterward, looking up, we felt pretty accomplished.

We then found a very pretty, horizontal walking path that hugged the hill. We walked on it until it started to get vertical (if we'd stayed on it we would have found the easier way to the top of the hill), then turned around back to town and walked some more.

My one and only chin-up of the trip

 

Day 8- Demir Kapija, Macedonia

Caught the bus to Demir Kapija, the fancy hotel/vineyard in the Tikves Valley, the heart of Macedonian wine country.



 
 
We checked in, and before heading to take a walk to town, wanted to try a glass of wine. The server left some menus, then promptly forgot about us. After about 20 minutes, we decided to just walk to town, which is basically one strip about 300 meters long.  We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, and spotted a family from Israel which looked to be 2 sisters, their husbands and a total of six kids, all under the age of 10. 

Day 9- Demir Kapija, Macedonia

This was the most weather-dependent portion of the trip. Located in the middle of nowhere, there is really nothing to do here but hike, drink and watch TV. Lucky for us, it was the first sunny day of the trip.

After an epic buffet breakfast at the hotel, we attempted one of the "Great Hikes" in the guide book to a nearby Turkish village called Celevec. We went to the "trail head", and were perplexed to find nothing that suggested any such thing. I asked a guy in his front yard about it, and lucky us again, he spoke very good English! He said that the only way to make it in that direction is if you could fly. He told us the real way to go, and after a few false starts (including what turned out to be a freeway on-ramp) we found the the right road.

 

We walked and walked and walked, asking directions along the way.
 


It was gorgeous, though a bit hotter than we were used to, and we had foolishly neglected to bring along any water. When it was clear that were were not heading toward Celevec, we turned around, and went back to the one shop in Koreshnica,  the little town we passed through, and got a big honkin' bottle of cold water. Even though we didn't reach our destination, the whole point was simply to take a nice walk, and we were walking for over 5 hours, so no regrets.

Back in Demir Kapija, we went to the one pizza joint in town, thinking "yeah, we'll see". Shame on us for doubting! It was fantastic, with sesame seeds, no less.

We saw the Israeli family again, and talked to one of the men. It turns out that they had stayed at Etno House Shancheva 10 days before us. They loved it so much that the kids cried when it was time to leave.

Day 10- Prilep, Macedonia

When we paid and checked out the night before, the receptionist said that because we had to miss breakfast to catch our early taxi and bus, they would have some sandwiches packed up for us and waiting at the desk when we left. There was some sort of miscommunication, and the lunches weren't there when the taxi showed up. Oh well. While were waiting at the bus stop, a maintenance guy from the hotel drove up in his own car and brought us the lunches. While we didn't love the hotel, this act of customer service blew us away.

We arrived fairly early in Prilep, got to our apartment, then walked toward Markos Towers at the top of the hill. We didn't force ourselves to climb all the way up, but we enjoyed a beautiful hike.
 
 
 

 



 After that, hung out at a cafe for awhile,

then went to dinner at Aura, a groovy vegetarian restaurant/bar not far from our apartment.

Day 11-Krushevo, Macedonia

This was Bhob's one "Must See" stop, and I purposely didn't look up any info or photos, so it would be a complete surprise. We waited out the thick morning fog in a cafe (with really hot coffee!), then walked up the hill to this:



 

It is a memorial for a (sadly) short-lived uprising of the Macedonians against the Ottoman Empire.

After that, walked around,






went to another cafe (also with very hot coffee),
 
 then back to Prilep.

Day 12-Bitola, Macedonia

All I knew about Bitola is that The Book said it's a nice place to walk around. Hmmm... I suppose we could give this "walking around" thing a try. Yup. Pretty great!

Day 13- Prizren, Kosovo

Long travel day. A few hours back to Skopje, then a few hours (including border crossing) back to Kosovo.
 

After the long bus ride, we were happy to walk to 10 minutes into town to meet our Airbnb host. The phone didn't work so we asked a guy in a kebob shop to call for us. The host's sister Naile arrived shortly and walked us up the hill (past the crusty hostel we stayed at last year) to our place, which was the most expensive lodging of the trip.





 Our street bears a striking resemblance to the giant slide at the Minnesota State Fair


Our top priority was finding a place that we passed by last year, but didn't stop at, as we didn't know quite what to make of it. It was like a little shack in front of a house, with a Jaegermeister banner on it and 3 tables inside. After we got home (last year), we kicked ourselves for not at least popping our heads in to say hello, and we vowed to re-visit it this year. To our surprise, we found it quite easily, and were delighted that it was still there.


 The door was open, the TV was on but no one was there. So we walked away a bit and waited a few minutes. The proprietor showed up shortly after that, and with much glee we sat down and had a shot of raki. His name is Islam and lives in the house in back with his 90-something mother. He spoke English fairly well, so we had a great time talking. He had lived in Germany for awhile, and taught himself German and Turkish there. He also used to volunteer at Prizren's annual documentary film festival. Cool guy!
 

The bar is kind of like if you lived in a tourist town, and wanted a place to have coffee or drinks with your friends without paying the tourist prices, you'd put some tables and chairs on your front porch, stock it with  a few bottles of liquor and beer, and charge your friends a nominal amount. We  loved it!

 

After a couple more shots of raki, we went to the touristy pedestrian area for dinner and ate at the same place we ate last year, Beska. On the table, they have a shaker of salt, and a shaker of salt.

Day 14- Prizren, Kosovo

After a beautiful sunrise...


....we walked around some more.

 

 

  

 

 

Day 15- Gjakova, Kosovo

(Pronounced jyah-COVE-ah)

We passed through a traffic circle here last year, and wondered what the rest of the town was like. We booked one night, and upon arriving, immediately regretting not booking at least two. The apartment was huge, and brand new,

 and best of all, the host's sister Erza was home for the weekend from Prishtina, and offered to show us around for a couple of hours.

Erza! Fun Fact: Her sister is in grad school at the U of M and lives in St. Paul

 It was a fantastic tour, with lots of insider information, both practical and cultural. For example, she explained to us that the little boy pasha outfits that we saw in shops everywhere were for a 5-6 year-old's circumcision ceremony and afterparty (or for older boys if the family needs more time to save enough money for a big party. Yikes)

The old bazaar had burned down during the war in 1999. Parts have been rebuilt, but only a fraction of the artisans previously working there have returned.
 

 

We went to a restaurant in a 200-year old building
 
and had some different types of raki, including an amazing one called pjepni, made from melon (not sweet!)

Later we went to a fancy, yet reasonably priced restaurant called Carshia e Jupave. Afterward, we were impressed by Viva Fresh Store, which had groceries, Halloween costumes, household goods, appliances and woodstoves. It was like CostCo but with normal package sizes.

Day 16- Prishtina, Kosovo

After leaving friendly, beautiful Gjavoka, arriving  in Prishtina was an assault on all senses. Between the freezing temperature, strong winds, thick diesel fumes and homicidal motorists, we felt bombarded.

After getting to two of Bhob's "must see" attractions:

 

We went to a place we'd heard about called Dit e Nat, which sounded nifty, cozy and sweet, but turned out to be a place that seemed to be run by college sophomores who have just discovered vegetarianism and John Coltrane. It was like being at a private party to which we weren't invited.

By the time we got home, we were so frazzled we didn't want to leave the apartment again.
 

Day 17- Prishtina, Kosovo

We had hoped to get out for a walk before the traffic got too heavy, but the temperature was 29 degrees, not great for meandering. We decided to go to the two nearby museums, which opened at 10 AM. I passed the hours by sitting in the sunny, glassed-in stairwell landing.

The first museum had an exhibition of reproductions of artifacts from the museum in Durres, Albania, arranged in darkness with braille placards, to it could be experienced by touch more than sight.

The Ethnological Museum was an oasis of calm, and had a huge collection of items, and lots of rooms for display. The curator was around so we got a guided tour.

We spent the rest of the day cafe hopping,

 
 biding our time until the 5 PM showing of Snowden, which was at what I believe might be the only movie theater in the country. We got there at 4:30, and were told that they would only show the movie if there were 5 paying customers. 15 minutes later, two more people showed up. By 5 PM, we didn't have a 5th, so we paid the extra 3 euros so we could see the film (which was quite good).

Day 18- Depart 

Our Gjakova host Erza's friend Bujar is a taxi driver, and he not only gave us a ride to the airport, he also gave us some good tips for our next trip to Kosovo. The Prishtina airport is brand new, and sold t-shirts with the Albanian  double-headed eagle with the word "Princess" above it. I informed Bhob of this after it was too late for him to buy one. Now we really need to return.

From The "Copyright, Shmopyright" File

 

 

 

 

 

FAQs

Isn't Kosovo dangerous?

No more dangerous than Great Britain in 1962.

Why 3 trips to the Balkans in as many years?

This trip wasn't supposed to happen until 2017. When our 2016 plans fell through (destination still a secret!), we had 10 days to implement a Plan B. I threw together an itinerary based on previous research, spent 5 hours on the websites of Airbnb, Turkish Airlines, Booking.com and Trip Advisor, and this was the result. All in all, a very enjoyable consolation prize. We'll probably return in a few years to get to the places we missed in both countries.

How was the weather?

Ideal! Most days were overcast with highs in the mid-upper 50s, perfect for walking around all day without getting wiped out from too much sun, heat or cold. Before leaving, and throughout the trip, the official forecast was for rain, rain and more rain. In reality, we had one incident of walking in light rain for about 30 minutes coming from the bus stop in Prilep. Either we are extremely blessed, or weather.com is extremely wrong (or maybe a bit of both).

How did your "One Bag" strategy go?

Great!

http://www.onebag.com/

My backpack weighed 13 pounds, and I could have brought even less. Of critical importance is the Scott E Vest; I can't endorse it strongly enough!

http://www.scottevest.com/index_first_visit.shtml

Any surprises?

Strumica! Other than letters on a map, I had no idea of anything about it. It is a charming town that has a life of its own aside from tourism (though they probably wouldn't mind some more tourist dollars being thrown around).

What were the highlights?

Everything was pretty wonderful, but I'd have to pick Etno House Shancheva in Karatovo, Islam's bar in Prizren and the tour of Gjakova with the delightful Erza.

Did you learn any national anthems?

I learned the Macedonian one. Though it didn't come into play too often, it was good for my brain, and the second verse taught me of the existence of several people with streets named after them in every town. 

Did you try any new foods?

Yes! Stevce turned us on to the traditional Macedonian wonder that is ajvar (pronounced eye-var). It is made from red peppers that are roasted, peeled, seeded, cooked and stirred constantly for a few hours, and oil is added at some point. The texture is so silky, and almost pudding-like. There is nothing like it in the U.S.

In Strumica and Krushevo, our omelets were accompanied by a little dish of crushed red pepper, not like the kind at a pizza parlor, but more like Aleppo pepper. 

How much did it cost?

For 2 people, 17 days and nights:

Airfare- $2337.92 (not bad for 10 days notice!)

Lodging- $797.90 ($45.17 per day) Kosovo was about $13 more per night

Food & Drinks- $464.48 ($27.32 per day, with lots of splurges and generous tipping)

Ground transportation- $296.53

Misc. (paper towels, gel shoe inserts, etc) $25.78

Museum & Movie- $21.09

Total on the ground $1575.78 ($92.69 per day)

Total with airfare- $3913.70  ($230. 22 per day)

To afford a trip like this for one person, you would have to save $5.36 per day for a year.

How were your flights?

Everything was smooth except for the last segment at (surprise!) O'Hare.

I have nothing but the highest praise for Air Canada and Turkish Airlines. The segment from Prishtina to Istanbul was on an Airbus A320. We didn't want to disembark!

The kosher meals catered out of Toronto were unremarkable, but the ones catered out of Istanbul were really good. 

On the flight out, I watched Harry Potter 1 & 3, and on the way back Harry Potter 2 & 4, plus Concussion and a documentary about Turkish glass blowing.

The longest stretch was Istanbul to Chicago, clocking in at 12 hours (hence the multiple Harry Potter films).

Wanting to be all proper, we filled out separate customs declaration forms, since we don't share an address. When we got to O'Hare, I somehow got flagged for extra scrutiny, but I was unable to communicate this to Bhob until he was already through some double doors. While I waited and waited, then unpacked and answered questions, Bhob was desperately trying to get someone to page me, which they wouldn't. One rude guard couldn't believe that I didn't have a cell phone. Eventually, we reconnected, then found out that our flight had been cancelled. Luckily we were able to get on a flight that departed at 1 AM (we were originally supposed to be home by midnight). It was better than "sleeping" at the airport, which we'd had to do previously. We did get to enjoy the random cheers of Cubs fans watching the World Series in the concourse.

Do Kosovars and Macedonians smoke as much as Albanians?

Let's put it this way: If you own Philip Morris stock, the Balkans can assure you that your shares won't be losing value anytime soon.

Did they get the memo about litter?

Nope. Not yet.

 

Any noteworthy music?

Not really. Occasional classic Balkan, some current autotuned garbage, but mostly an odd mix of American pop music from th 70s to the 00s. ABBA was there for us a both trips to Silvo bakery, and at Pizza Lovec.

The most memorable soundtrack was on the bus from Demir Kapija to Prilep, jammed with high-schoolers. The trip, on a winding mountain road, with jaw-droppingly gorgeous scenery was accompanied by a radio station (slogan: "If we don't play it, you don't need to hear it") which seemed to specialize in overwrought songs from the 80s. When Eternal Flame is followed by Total Eclipse of the Heart, you know that  Lady in Red can't be far behind.

Should I go?

If you like hills, mountains, charming towns built into hillsides, friendly people, and inexpensive food and drink, then Yes! I've heard that there is some great skiing in Kosovo.

If you go to Macedonia, I would strongly advise familiarizing yourself with the alphabet, if only for bus destinations, street signs and menus. It's not too hard. Just make some flashcards, spell some common words with the Cyrillic alphabet and you'll be fine.

Who watched your cat while you were gone?

My dear nephew Bryan house sat and took excellent care of little Stinkerbell.

Did you manage to find any additions to your international clothes pins collection?

Why, yes! As a matter of fact, I did:
 

Random Observations

97% of all bicyclists were men over the age of 55.
 

We saw two guys at Ataturk airport eating pizza with spoons.

These coffee machines were ubiquitous in Macedonia
 

The prevailing haircut among young men is  close-cropped sides with a voluminous rockabilly 'do on top. It looks like it requires a lot of blow drying and styling product. Facial hair has also arrived amongst the young and hip.

In most towns, every third storefront had displays in front of Bowls and Brooms and Buckets and Balls (which I started singing to the tune of Buttons and Bows).

In Prizren, the brooms used by municipal workers to sweep the streets look like props from a stage production of The Witches.

At bakeries and restaurants, if something is said to contain "chocolate", it contains nutella. If something is said to contain "kreme", it contains nutella.

In Strumica, 40% of women have the kind of hair style that only hair stylists have. Is everyone a hair stylist, or does the local government subsidize haircuts?

The handy phrase book (published in 2008) at the Strumica apartment  was a source of great entertainment. It was from a British publisher, which added an additional layer of disconnect. It included translations for such useful phrases as "Sorry, it's off". "Where's the reading room?", "Can I pay in travellers' cheques?", instructions on sending a telegram, and compliments like "You are very well made up".

In the "Introductions" section, it listed 30 professions, including actress, goldsmith, milliner and shoemaker. I guess there's no words in Macedonian for Project Manager or Data Entry.

Kosovo Loves America! At least the people old enough to remember the war seem to have an appreciation. One 60-something barrista, when he learned that we were from America, put his hand on his heart and said "America is there for us! America is like our father!".

Everyone was so, so helpful, even if they didn't speak English (or if they only spoke the three most common words in English "Is no problem"). People were so great about explaining, and making everything go smoothly, we learned quite quickly to relax and let the Balkans take care of us.