Wednesday 16th November – Pristina, Kosovo

• Arrival at your own leisure into Pristina, the capital city of one of the youngest countries in the world: Kosovo!
• Check into our very comfortable private apartments at in Pristina. The apartments are run by a very hospitable Kosovan family who kept this business going even through the darkest days of the Kosovo War.
• Meet with your YPT guide and the rest of the group arriving as part of the wider Eurasia tour in the afternoon. We’ll then head downtown and check out the fascinating ethnographic museum detailing life in a traditional Kosovar home in centuries gone by.
• Visit the museum of Kosovo with discarded artillery and weapons left over from the war. Usually devoid of visitors, this museum details the ancient history of this land and covers their brutal fight for independence.
• Visit a local Kosovan restaurant for delicious food and to warm ourselves up with their homemade rakija!
• Overnight in private apartment in Pristina.

Thursday 17th November – Mitrovica – Pristina Morning

• Early wake up, breakfast and head to the bus station for the quick bus journey to Mitrovica.
• This tense and divided city was the scene of numerous bloody fights and international incidents. Divided into two parts by a river, Kosovan and Serbian, each side is like crossing into a different nation.
• We’ll arrive on the Kosovo side and grab lunch in a local restaurant, before exploring the sights on this side of the river.

Afternoon

• Cross the tense bridge, guarded by international peacekeepers, and enter the Serbian side. We will see huge political murals honouring Serb commanders, generals, and paramilitaries as well as visit a bizarre souvenir shop that sells every pro-Russian, pro-Putin and pro-Serbian thing you can imagine.
• Take a leisurely walk to the top of the town, where there is an odd communist monument with incredible views over this divided city. It’s common to catch glimpses of international Black Hawk helicopters patrolling the city.
• We cross back into the Kosovo side and catch the bus back to Pristina.
• On arrival we start our city tour of Pristina, taking in things like the Bill Clinton statue on Bill Clinton Boulevard, and stroll past the university to the Grand Hotel and UNMIK, the Skenderberg monument and the new Government Building, then the historic mosques and the tight lanes of the Old Quarter. You will see cafes, street market stalls, kids hawking cigarettes and phone cards, plus the vibrant life of Kosovo’s biggest city.
• Free time back at the hotel before we head out for a group dinner in an awesome little local restaurant, where you will be brought numerous local dishes until you can take no more!
• Overnight in Pristina.

Friday 18th November – Brod – Tirana, Albania Morning

• Wake up early to board our private bus for the extremely scenic four hour drive to Brod.
• Brod is populated by the Gorani people. The Gorani have a total population of roughly 50,000 people. They are primarily sheep and cattle herders, but also have a cartel network of dessert/sweet shops. They live in a very geographically small mountainous area of the most southern part of Kosovo, in and near the city of Dragash just south of Prizren. The Gorani have their own language, which is a Torlakian Slavic language, related to Serbian and Macedonian, with Albanian and Turkish loanwords.

Afternoon

• We will stop for lunch at the new hotel that has been built just on the outskirts of Brod.
• We take our time walking around the old village, where there are numerous chances for some great photos and some wonderful hiking routes.
• The village was heavily damaged during the Kosovo war as both Serbian troops and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) militias operated in the area. Many homes are still ruined by artillery and NATO strikes. Some of the walls of buildings are still daubed with ‘Allahu Akbar’’, faded graffiti left by the KLA.
• Begin our trip to Tirana and check into the centrally located hotel.
• Head out in the evening for some incredible Albanian food, followed by rakija in a spinning sky bar located downtown Tirana. Doesn’t drinking grape-based moonshine while spinning in a circle at the top of one of Tirana’s tallest buildings sounds like a great idea?
• Overnight in Tirana.

Saturday 19th November – Tirana Morning

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Store our bags and begin an extensive city tour of Albania, we will see many relics of the communist regime, including a bizarre and foreboding pyramid that is perfect for climbing up for those who are brave enough!
• Visit the infamous House of Leaves, this was the surveillance centre that the communist authorities used to spy on the population of Albania, foreign embassies and the rare foreign tourists that dared to enter the country back then.

Afternoon

• Lunch at one of Tirana’s many great restaurants, with the option to eat in the ironic KFC that now overlooks the former home of Enver Hoxha.
• Visit to one of Tirana’s best kept secrets: a collection of hulking Soviet statues hidden beneath an alleyway. While it is not allowed to enter, as always, your YPT guide can get around it and allow you to get some great shots of Tirana’s former Lenin and Stalin monuments!
• Explore the vast former government bunkers of the Hoxha regime, this is where the running of the country would have been coordinated from in the event of an expected nuclear war and is a great insight into the advanced paranoia of the regime.
• Tour concludes – YPT is able to arrange post-tour accommodation or advice for ongoing transportation.

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