Pristina, Aug 2019
A day and a night in Pristina, Kosovo.
Contains 99 photos, the last of which were added 5 years, 1 month, 1 day, 21 hours, 29 minutes, and 55 seconds ago.
A day and a night in Pristina, which is a 2 hour and ~€5 bus ride from Skopje. There's pro-American sentiment like I've never seen anywhere, and pro-EU sentiment is visible too. Kosovo uses the euro and is populated by 90% Albanian Muslims; Albanian is the most commonly spoken language, but despite the 5% Serb makeup Serbian is technically an official language as well. Pristina is a vibrant city with lots of new buildings and modern amenities, despite the tiny population, tiny budget, and enormous unemployment rate.
I wandered up and down the pedestrianised and cafe-lined Mother Teresa Boulevard in the daytime and evening, and always it was buzzing with young people and families.
Of course I checked out the various famous statues and monuments: Bill Clinton's statue; the Yugoslav Memorial to Brotherhood and Unity; Skanderberg on a horse in the main square; the New Born installation; the Heroinat monument to the 20,000 women raped during the Kosovo war.
And distinctive buildings: the University and City library (a blocky brutalist alien piece of architecture that is supposed to simultaneously invoke Byzantine forms, the domes of Turkish hammams, all draped in a giant fishing net); the Youth Palace sports center; the unfinished Serbian Orthodox church on the university campus; the Mother Teresa Catholic cathedral; the old bazaar clock tower which never works; the Stone Mosque.
There are lots of interesting museums in Pristina, most of which are free, but all are closed on Mondays.
I spent 2.5 hours on a very informative walking tour.
And ate at Dit e Nat vegetarian cafe, Green & Protein health food place, and Babaganoush vegetarian falafel joint. Failed to find baklava, but did get Turkish coffee and some probably-maybe-lost-in-translation vegan treats from a coffeehouse near the Grand Hotel.
