Kosovo and Metohija is the southern province of Serbia, and for Serbs it's where the country's history begins. The region was Roman and then Byzantine when Slavic tribes, Serbs among them, settled the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries; it later belonged to the First Bulgarian Empire (9th-11th centuries) and to Byzantium again. Stefan Nemanja, founder of the Nemanjić dynasty, took the Kosovo plain in the 1180s and 1190s, and by about 1219 it was fully part of the Serbian state. For two centuries it was its center. The name Metohija, for the western half, comes from the Greek metochion, a church estate, because so much of its land belonged to monasteries. In 1253 the head of the Serbian church moved to Peć; the Serbian Patriarchate, proclaimed in Skopje in 1346, had its seat there. Kings and an emperor built the churches you'll see this week, from Bogorodica Ljeviška (1306-07) and Gračanica (1321) to Visoki Dečani (1327-35), and four of them are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed under Serbia and on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2006. On 15 June 1389 (Old Style; it's commemorated on 28 June, Vidovdan), the army of Prince Lazar met the Ottomans on the Kosovo field. Both Lazar and Sultan Murad I died there, and the province fell to the Ottomans in 1455.
The Ottoman centuries changed the population. After a failed Austrian campaign, tens of thousands of Serbs left with Patriarch Arsenije III in the Great Migration of 1690, more followed in 1737-39, and the Patriarchate of Peć was abolished in 1766. Islamization and Albanian settlement went on for generations, and Albanians were the majority by the 19th century at the latest; how early that happened is debated by historians. In 1877-78 Albanians expelled from the Niš area resettled in Kosovo. In the First Balkan War of 1912 Serbia took Kosovo and Montenegro took most of Metohija, including Peć and Dečani, until both joined Yugoslavia in 1918; atrocities against Albanians in that war were documented by an international commission. Between the wars the kingdom settled Serbian colonists in the province and many Albanians emigrated to Turkey. In World War II most of the province was annexed to Italian-ruled Albania, and by most estimates 70,000-100,000 Serbs and Montenegrins were expelled or sent to camps.
The modern problem took shape under the communists. In March 1945 the new Yugoslav authorities temporarily banned the colonists expelled during the war from returning; that year they made Kosovo and Metohija an autonomous region of Serbia, in 1968 they dropped "Metohija" from its name, and the 1974 constitution gave the province its own constitution and a seat in the federal presidency alongside the republics, while it formally stayed part of Serbia. In 1981 Albanian demonstrators demanded a republic of their own; through the 1980s many Serbs left under pressure. In 1989 Serbia ended most of the province's autonomy, in 1990 it dissolved the provincial assembly, and Albanians were dismissed from state jobs and schools in large numbers, so they built parallel institutions of their own.
From 1996 the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) attacked police and civilians, and by 1998 there was open war. On 16 January 1999 the bodies of 45 Albanians were found in the village of Račak. The OSCE mission chief, William Walker, called it a massacre of civilians by Serbian forces; Belgrade said they were KLA fighters killed in combat and accused him of staging it. Helena Ranta, head of the Finnish forensic team, said she saw no evidence that they were anything other than unarmed civilians, while her team's published paper left the manner of death undetermined, and she later said she had been pressured to go further. The UN war crimes tribunal never ruled on Račak; a UN-run court in Pristina convicted a Serbian policeman in 2001 in a widely criticized trial, and he was later pardoned. Račak became the turning point: NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days, from 24 March to 10 June 1999, without authorization from the UN Security Council, killing around 500 civilians by Human Rights Watch's count. During the war about 850,000 Albanians fled or were deported; the tribunal later convicted senior Serbian and Yugoslav officials of deportation and murder, and in 2001 mass graves of Kosovo Albanians were found at Batajnica near Belgrade. The Kosovo Memory Book counts 13,535 people killed or missing in 1998-2000: 10,812 Albanians, 2,197 Serbs and 526 Roma and others.
The war ended with UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999. It reaffirms "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", which Serbia continues, provides for "substantial autonomy" for Kosovo within it pending "a political process designed to determine Kosovo's future status", and placed the province under UN administration with NATO-led KFOR troops. It has never been revoked and is still in force. After it, more than 164,000 Serbs and many Roma left, around 1,000 Serbs and Roma were killed or went missing in the following months (Human Rights Watch), and Serbia still registers around 200,000 people displaced from the province. In March 2004 riots killed 19 people (8 Serbs and 11 Albanians), destroyed more than 900 Serbian homes and about 35 churches and monasteries, and drove out some 4,000 Serbs and others; mosques in Belgrade and Niš were set on fire in response. In 2008 the Albanian-led institutions declared independence. Serbia does not recognize it, nor do Russia, China, India, Brazil and five EU members (Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia); roughly half the world's states do, depending on who counts. Kosovo is not a member of the UN or UNESCO. In 2010 the International Court of Justice found that the declaration itself did not violate international law, while saying it was not ruling on whether Kosovo is a state. In September 2026 the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague convicted former KLA leaders, among them Hashim Thaçi, of war crimes against detainees, including murder (a first-instance verdict). People see all of this very differently; this guide sticks to what the documents and courts say.
For a visitor, the province today is a place of extraordinary medieval painting, monasteries where nuns and monks still live and pray, Serbian towns and villages, a mostly Albanian population elsewhere, and rules worth knowing before you go. The plan enters from central Serbia and follows the monasteries: day one the north, Banjska and Zvečan, day two Devič, Gazimestan and Gračanica, day three Novo Brdo and the Patriarchate of Peć, day four Visoki Dečani and the wine village of Velika Hoča, and day five Prizren, Emperor Dušan's city. No stop has a closing day, so any day works to start, but read the tips first.
Every stop from the plan below, colored by day. Pick a day to see its route.
King Milutin's burial church at Banjska, the Romanesque Madonna of Sokolica, the fortress where a Serbian king died, and an evening by the Ibar bridge.
The convent of St. Joanikije, burned in 2004 and rebuilt, the battlefield of 1389, the sultan who died there, and Gračanica, the jewel of King Milutin.
The ruined silver town of the medieval despots, then the red churches of the Patriarchate of Peć, burial place of the Serbian archbishops, and the Rugova gorge at dusk.
The largest medieval church in Serbia, with a thousand frescoed scenes, under international guard, then wine and churches in the Serbian village of Velika Hoča, and sunset over Prizren.
King Milutin's Bogorodica Ljeviška with its 14th-century frescoes, the cathedral and seminary, the ruins of Dušan's burial monastery, and the Ottoman old town.
Leave Belgrade by 6:30: it's about 310 km and 5 hours by road via Kraljevo and Raška to the Jarinje crossing, plus the queue, and Banjska is the first monastery after it. Eat on the way, and plan to be at Zvečan before dark (about 6pm in early October, 4:30pm in November). On the way, the Ibar road passes Studenica (see If You Have More Time). Spend the night in North Kosovska Mitrovica, the largest Serbian town in the province.
King Milutin, one of the greatest builders among the Nemanjić rulers, raised Banjska in 1313-17 as his own mausoleum, and was buried here in 1321. The church, dedicated to St. Stephen, was faced in colored stone and was one of the richest of its time; after the Ottoman conquest it fell into ruin, and Milutin's body was moved, eventually to Sofia, where it still lies. Monks returned in 2004, and the church has been rebuilt around its surviving medieval portal and apse.
On 24 September 2023 a masked, armed group of Kosovo Serbs ambushed a Kosovo Police patrol nearby, killing Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku, then forced the monastery gate with an armored vehicle while pilgrims from Novi Sad were inside. Three of the attackers died in the shootout; Milan Radoičić, then vice-president of the main Serb party, Srpska lista, admitted organizing it, and the Eparchy of Raška-Prizren condemned the attack. Today Banjska is again a quiet working monastery, and its feast on 15 August draws crowds of pilgrims.
Twenty minutes from Mitrovica, up a mountain road in the village of Boljetin, a small convent clings to a wooded hillside among granite boulders. The church of the Protection of the Mother of God at Sokolica dates from the 14th-15th centuries, and its treasure is unusual for an Orthodox church: a Romanesque stone statue of the Virgin and Child, believed to have come from Banjska's portal, which pilgrims have venerated for centuries.
On an extinct volcanic cone above the Ibar stands Zvečan, one of the oldest fortresses in Serbia, from the 11th century. It guarded the road between Raška and Kosovo, and in 1331 King Stefan Dečanski, overthrown by his son Dušan, was imprisoned and died here; his foundation at Dečani is day four. The walls are in ruins; a path climbs to the top, where the view takes in the whole Ibar valley.
Kosovska Mitrovica is divided by the Ibar river: the north is Serbian, the south Albanian, and the main bridge between them became the symbol of the divided province. It's open to pedestrians only, still closed to cars, and was guarded for years by a fixed post of Italian Carabinieri from KFOR, which in August 2026 switched to mobile patrols. Walk to its northern end, look across, and then up to the church of St. Demetrius on the hill and the monument to the miners of Trepča, the huge mine that once made this a rich industrial town.
Have dinner in the north: pljeskavica and ćevapi, kajmak and a šopska salad, just like in central Serbia. On 8 November the town celebrates its patron, St. Demetrius.
Today crosses the middle of the province: Devič is about 45 minutes from Mitrovica, then an hour to the Kosovo field and Gračanica, where you sleep. On the way out of Mitrovica, the small church of Samodreža near Vučitrn is where, tradition says, Lazar's army took communion before the battle. Gračanica is the largest Serbian enclave south of the Ibar, and the natural base for the next morning.
Deep in the Drenica hills, Despot Đurađ Branković founded Devič around 1434 near the cave of the hermit St. Joanikije, whose relics drew pilgrims of all faiths. The convent's modern history reads like a summary of the province's: burned in 1941, its saint's tomb desecrated in June 1999, after KFOR arrived, then looted and set on fire in March 2004, when the nuns had to be evacuated. It has since been rebuilt, the nuns are back, and since 2012 the Kosovo Police, not KFOR, guard it.
On a low hill above the Kosovo field stands the stone tower of Gazimestan, built in 1953 by the architect Aleksandar Deroko to mark the Battle of Kosovo of 1389, with verses from the Kosovo epic cycle carved inside, including the curse Prince Lazar is said to have laid on any Serb who did not come to fight. Next to it stands a copy of the stone on which Despot Stefan, Lazar's son, recorded the battle. The battle became the center of Serbian memory: a story of a prince who chose "the heavenly kingdom" over the earthly one, of Miloš Obilić, who according to tradition killed the sultan in his tent, and of a defeat remembered as a sacrifice. In fact the outcome was unclear at the time: both leaders died, and Serbia went on as an Ottoman vassal for decades. In 1989 Slobodan Milošević gave a famous speech here on the 600th anniversary.
A short drive away is the türbe, the tomb of Sultan Murad I, built by his son: the only Ottoman sultan killed in battle. His organs are buried here, his body in Bursa.
Gračanica is the masterpiece of King Milutin's late years, finished in 1321 on the ruins of the old bishop's church of Lipljan, as his own inscription on the wall says. Its five domes rise in stepped arches of stone and brick, a high point of late Byzantine architecture. It's a working convent with about two dozen nuns, and since 1999 the temporary seat of the Serbian bishop of Raška-Prizren. Just outside town are the ruins of Ulpiana, a Roman city.
Inside, every surface is painted, with frescoes of 1321-22, believed to be by the workshop of Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, including the first painted family tree of the Nemanjić dynasty and portraits of Milutin and his young Byzantine queen, Simonida, whose eyes were gouged out by a vandal centuries ago. The nuns sell icons, books and their own products. Inside, light a candle as the locals do: in the upper stand for the living, in the lower one for the dead.
Gračanica is a small Serbian town with cafés and kafanas around the monastery. Have a quiet dinner: pečenje, roast pork or lamb, sarma if it's cold, ajvar and young cheese, and a glass of red wine from Velika Hoča, which you'll visit on day four. The church follows the old Julian calendar, so Christmas falls on 7 January; from 28 November the Christmas fast begins, and monasteries serve fasting food.
A morning detour east to Novo Brdo (about 35 minutes from Gračanica), then about 2 hours west across the province to Peć in Metohija. In late October and November, when it's dark by 4:30pm, save the Rugova gorge for the next morning. Spend the night in Peć or in the Serbian village of Goraždevac next to it.
In the Middle Ages, Novo Brdo was one of the richest mining towns in Europe. Its silver mines, worked by Saxon miners, produced up to about six tonnes of silver a year in the 15th century, and the town had its own mining law, a Serbian cathedral and a Catholic church for the foreigners. On 1 June 1455 it fell to the Ottomans. Among the boys taken was Konstantin Mihailović, who became a janissary and later wrote the Memoirs of a Janissary, one of the first eyewitness accounts of the Ottoman army.
Today the fortress is a ruin of towers and walls on a hilltop, damaged by illegal digging since 1999, with the foundations of the cathedral of St. Nicholas below. There are no fixed hours or tickets.
At the mouth of the Rugova gorge, the Patriarchate of Peć is a cluster of four churches painted red, built from the 1220s to the 1330s, three of them joined by a common narthex. In 1253 Archbishop Arsenije I moved the seat of the Serbian church here from Žiča, and in 1346, when Dušan was crowned emperor, it became the seat of the first Serbian Patriarch. Abolished after the Ottoman conquest, restored in 1557 and abolished again in 1766, it remained the spiritual center of the Serbs; archbishops and patriarchs are buried in its churches, and the Serbian Patriarch is still enthroned here.
Inside, the frescoes span four centuries, from the 13th to the 17th. It's a convent today, and the Patriarch served the Easter liturgy here in April 2026.
Behind the Patriarchate, the Pećka Bistrica river has cut a gorge about 25 km long into the Prokletije mountains, with cliffs hundreds of meters high, a winding road, tunnels and stone bridges. Drive or walk the first few kilometers in daylight.
Peć today is a mostly Albanian town, with a busy old bazaar and restaurants serving bread from wood-fired ovens, mountain cheese and ćevapi. Next door, Goraždevac is a Serbian village where, in August 2003, two Serbian teenagers were shot dead while swimming in the river; the killers were never found. Breakfast in the morning is burek, the flaky pie of the Balkans.
Dečani is about 20 minutes south of Peć and opens to visitors at 9:30. After it, about an hour to Velika Hoča, then 45 minutes to Prizren for the night.
In a valley at the foot of the mountains, King Stefan Dečanski began Visoki Dečani in 1327 as his burial church, and his son Dušan finished it around 1335. The builder was Fra Vita, a Franciscan from Kotor, which explains its Romanesque marble facade, striped in white and red. It's the largest medieval church in Serbia, and inside, painted over some fifteen years, are more than a thousand scenes and thousands of figures, from the life of Christ to a family tree of the Nemanjić dynasty and a calendar of saints. Stefan Dečanski's relics lie in a carved casket by the iconostasis, where pilgrims kiss them; services start at 6am every day, and an akathist to the saint is sung daily.
Dečani is a living monastery of about 20 monks, who sheltered Albanian and Roma refugees during the war of 1998-99. Since 1999 it has been guarded around the clock by KFOR, the only one of the province's UNESCO monasteries still under international guard. It came under mortar fire in 2000 and 2004 and a grenade attack in 2007. In 2026 KFOR began bringing the Kosovo Police into its security arrangements; the eparchy warned against a larger police role, and KFOR says it remains in charge. After a long land dispute, the monastery's 24 hectares were registered in its name in March 2024.
Velika Hoča is a Serbian village of stone houses and some 500 people in the vineyards of southern Metohija, with a dozen small medieval churches. Stefan Nemanja gave it to the monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos, and its wine has been made since the Middle Ages: Dečani's monastery cellar, the Dečanska vinica, is here, and the monks' tradition says St. Stefan Dečanski himself planted the vineyard. A memorial in the village remembers the Serbs kidnapped in 1998-2000. Visit one of the family wineries for a tasting of their reds, including prokupac, and buy a bottle. On the third day of Easter the village keeps the Bela vila custom, on Serbia's list of intangible heritage.
Five minutes away, the monastery of Zočište, of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, was blown up in 1999 and rebuilt from 2004.
Drive on to Prizren and climb to its fortress before dark. The path goes up through Potkaljaja, the old Serbian quarter on the slope, burned in 2004, where the Church of the Holy Saviour (about 1330) still stands in ruins. From the top, the old town lies on both banks of the Bistrica, with red roofs, minarets and the domes of the churches, the city Emperor Dušan made one of his capitals. The fortress is open and free at all hours.
A day on foot in Prizren, with a short drive or 30-minute walk up the gorge to the Holy Archangels. Prizren had a Serbian community of several thousand before 1999; today only a handful remain, and its churches are kept by the clergy and guarded by the police.
In 1306-07 King Milutin rebuilt an 11th-century basilica in the middle of Prizren as the cathedral of the Mother of God of Ljeviš, and Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, the leading painters of the age, covered it with frescoes. The Ottomans turned it into a mosque after 1455 and plastered over the paintings, which saved many of them; the minaret was removed in 1923. On 17-18 March 2004 rioters set it on fire. It has since been restored, and Bogorodica Ljeviška is part of the UNESCO site, on the List in Danger.
A few streets away, on the main square, is the Serbian cathedral of St. George, completed in 1887, damaged in 2004 and restored. Next to it is the Prizren Seminary of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, founded in 1871 by the merchant Sima Andrejević Igumanov and one of the oldest Serbian schools; rioters set it on fire in 2004 with people inside, and it reopened here in 2010. Ask the guard for permission to go in.
Up the Bistrica gorge, Emperor Dušan built the monastery of the Holy Archangels in 1343-52 as his burial church, one of the grandest of its time, and he was buried here in 1355. The Ottomans tore it down in the 17th century and used its stones for the Sinan Pasha mosque in town. Only foundations and fragments of the floor survive. Dušan's bones, found in 1927, now lie in St. Mark's Church in Belgrade. Monks returned in 1998. In June 1999, after KFOR arrived, Father Hariton was kidnapped and killed; the buildings were burned that year and again in 2004, and rebuilt. Today a single priest lives here, and the monastery's feasts in July and on 21 November draw pilgrims under police watch.
Walk back down into the old town, which has the feel of an Ottoman čaršija: the stone bridge over the Bistrica, the Šadrvan square with its fountain, cafés and silver filigree shops. The Sinan Pasha mosque of 1615, built partly with stones from Dušan's monastery, dominates the river bank. Prizren is also where the Albanian League of Prizren was founded in 1878, a turning point in Albanian national history, and its building, burned in 1999 and rebuilt, is now a museum. Most of the town today is Albanian, and Turkish is also spoken.
End with dinner by the river: grilled meat, bread from the oven, peppers and cheese from the Šar mountains, and a bottle of Velika Hoča or Dečani wine you bought yesterday. In the morning, the drive back to Belgrade via Merdare or Jarinje takes about 6 hours.
With more time, these are the best additions, including two of the great monasteries of central Serbia on the road from Belgrade.
Before you cross into the province, stop at Studenica, the mother church of medieval Serbia, founded by Stefan Nemanja in 1186, with frescoes from 1208-09 and a UNESCO listing of its own. Žiča, where Serbia's kings were crowned, and the fortress of Maglič are on the same road.
Getting there: On the Ibar road from Belgrade to Jarinje, about 12 km off the main road at Ušće
Near Novi Pazar, the monastery of Sopoćani has 13th-century frescoes that are among the finest in Europe, part of the UNESCO site of Stari Ras. Novi Pazar itself is famous across Serbia for its ćevapi.
Getting there: About 35 km, 40 minutes, off the route at Raška, before the Jarinje crossing
The Šar mountains on the southern edge of the province rise above 2,000 m, and the Serbian community of Štrpce lives at their foot. Brezovica was Yugoslavia's southern ski resort; its lifts and hotels have suffered from years of ownership disputes, so check what's running before you plan a ski trip. In summer it's open hiking country.
Getting there: About 1 hour from Prizren or Gračanica, near Štrpce
A long reservoir on the Ibar among wooded hills in the north, popular with locals for swimming and fishing in summer. In 2026 dozens of weekend houses and a church building on its shore were demolished by the local authorities, so check the news before you go.
Getting there: About 35 minutes west of Banjska, near Zubin Potok
A small monastery of St. Nicholas founded by Stefan Dečanski, today a dependency of Dečani, with icons from the 16th-18th centuries, in a quiet valley of Metohija.
Getting there: About 45 minutes north of Peć, near Istok
The food of the province is the food of the Balkans: grilled meat, pies, peppers and cheese, with wine from the vineyards of Metohija. These are the things to try.
Grilled minced meat, the small ćevapi sausages and the wide pljeskavica patty, served in warm flatbread with raw onion and kajmak, the salty dairy spread.
Where to try it: Grill houses in North Kosovska Mitrovica, Gračanica and every town.
Lamb or pork roasted whole on the spit, the centerpiece of Serbian feasts and monastery slavas, sold by the kilo with bread and onion.
Where to try it: Serbian kafanas in the north and in Gračanica.
Flaky pies for breakfast: burek with meat or cheese, bought by weight at a bakery, and gibanica, a cheese and egg pie made at home, both with a cup of yogurt.
Where to try it: Bakeries everywhere, early in the morning.
Autumn and winter food: ajvar, a relish of roasted red peppers, sarma, cabbage rolls slow-cooked with smoked meat, and the strong sheep's cheese of the Šar mountains.
Where to try it: Kafanas and markets; Šar cheese in Prizren and Štrpce.
Fruit brandy: plum šljivovica, or the grape brandy and walnut liqueur made by the Dečani monks. Offered as a welcome, sipped slowly.
Where to try it: Kafanas, and the Dečani monastery shop.
Southern Metohija has made wine since the Middle Ages, when the vineyards of Velika Hoča belonged to the monasteries. The Dečani monastery cellar makes red, white and Cabernet wines, and the village's family wineries make prokupac and other reds.
Where to try it: The wineries of Velika Hoča (day four) and the Dečani monastery shop.
Serbian coffee, boiled in a small copper pot and served unfiltered, the same coffee you'll find in Prizren's Ottoman cafés. In monasteries you'll often be offered it with a glass of water and a spoon of sweet preserve.
Where to try it: Cafés everywhere.
The natural bases are the Serbian towns and villages near the monasteries, plus Peć and Prizren. Book ahead and confirm by phone.
Best for: The first night and the northern monasteries
The largest Serbian town in the province, with hotels and kafanas, close to Banjska, Sokolica and Zvečan. The catch: protests and tensions flare up from time to time in the north, so check the news.
Best for: The monastery and central Kosovo
A small Serbian town around the monastery, with a few hotels and guesthouses, 15 minutes from Pristina airport and Gazimestan.
Best for: The Patriarchate, Dečani and Prizren
Mostly Albanian towns with the widest choice of hotels in Metohija. Goraždevac near Peć and Velika Hoča are Serbian villages with a few guesthouses; confirm them in advance. Dečani and other monasteries host pilgrims overnight by arrangement.
The practical stuff that makes the first day in Kosovo and Metohija easier.
Enter from central Serbia through the Jarinje or Merdare crossings. Serbia does not treat the province's crossing points as international borders, so if you arrive via Pristina airport, North Macedonia or Albania, you cannot travel on into central Serbia without a Serbian entry stamp: leave the way you came, through a third country. Serbian border guards have also refused or canceled stamps issued in the province.
Since February 2024 the euro is the only legal currency, including in Serbian areas, though some Serbian shops still take dinars informally. Bring euros in cash; cards work in hotels and bigger restaurants.
The Green Card is not valid; buy local third-party insurance at the crossing, in cash (usually under 20 EUR for two weeks). Many Serbian rental companies don't allow their cars into the province, and Serbian-registered rental cars have occasionally been targeted in isolated areas.
The UK and US advise caution, especially in the north, where protests can flare up, though the UK says it has improved since 2024; large gatherings also take place in Pristina. Avoid political gatherings, leave flags, slogans and patriotic songs at home, don't photograph police, soldiers or checkpoints, don't drive at night in the mountains, and carry your passport.
Covered shoulders and knees, women's heads covered in some convents, quiet voices and no photos inside without permission. Locals kiss the icons and relics and light candles; you don't have to, but stand back while they do. Donations keep these communities alive.
Since August 2026 a local tourism law requires organized groups to use licensed guides, and groups with unlicensed foreign guides have been fined. The eparchy advises pilgrim groups to travel with clergy and carry papers confirming the pilgrimage. Independent travelers are not affected.
Serbian is spoken in the Serbian towns and villages (the north, Gračanica, Štrpce, Velika Hoča), Albanian elsewhere, and Turkish in Prizren. Younger people speak English.
Local SIM cards cost a few euros with a passport. Check with your provider about roaming, which can be expensive. Plugs are European two-pin (C and F), 230 V.
Serbia's constitution defines the province as part of its territory, and UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999), still in force, reaffirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which Serbia continues, pending a political process on Kosovo's future status. The Albanian-led institutions declared independence in 2008; Serbia, Russia, China, India, Brazil, five EU members and many others don't recognize it, and Kosovo is not a member of the United Nations.
After a year of war between Serbian forces and the KLA, and the disputed deaths at Račak, NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days without UN Security Council authorization. About 850,000 Albanians fled or were deported, and senior Serbian officials were later convicted of crimes against them; NATO's bombing killed around 500 civilians. Afterwards more than 164,000 Serbs left the province, and around 1,000 Serbs and Roma were killed or went missing. The war ended with Resolution 1244, which put the province under UN administration with KFOR troops.
Most visitors have no problems, and the monasteries are calm. Western governments advise caution, especially in the north, though the UK says the situation there has improved since 2024. Avoid political gatherings and symbols, follow the news, and carry your passport.
Not directly with a foreign passport. Serbia doesn't recognize entry through the province's crossings, so without a Serbian entry stamp you can't continue into central Serbia, and Serbian border guards have sometimes canceled stamps issued in the province. Start in central Serbia and enter through Jarinje or Merdare, or leave through a third country.
Serbian churches and monasteries were attacked after 1999 and in the riots of March 2004, when about 35 were damaged or destroyed. Visoki Dečani is still guarded by KFOR, and the others by the police. The four UNESCO monuments, Dečani, the Patriarchate of Peć, Gračanica and Bogorodica Ljeviška, have been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2006.
Euros, in cash. Since February 2024 the euro is the only legal currency, including in Serbian areas, though some Serbian shops still take dinars informally.
Yes, for the great monasteries: Banjska, Gračanica, the Patriarchate of Peć, Visoki Dečani and Bogorodica Ljeviška, plus Velika Hoča and Prizren. Add a day for Studenica and Sopoćani on the way from Belgrade, or to stay overnight at a monastery.
Find Kosovo and Metohija on the map, learn the flag and check how much you really know about Serbia.
Serbia's biggest ski resort, planned sector by sector: red runs, a few blacks, kafana lunches, night skiing and a day off the snow.
Bases: Konaci, Vikend Naselje, Brzeće
Pine-covered hills, a gondola nine kilometers long, and the cheese, kajmak and pršut Serbs drive for hours to buy. Five days in the west.
Serbia's favorite spa: warm springs you drink from, a river promenade of twenty-odd bridges, a forested mountain and the great monasteries.
