Prizren

Horses in Prizren, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

So, we reach our last day in Prizren and still we haven't written about it, the jewel in the crown of Kosovan tourism. This is partly because the city has enough to keep one very busy wandering around and meeting people. Prizren is the hottest place in the Balkans apparently but we have not noticed this as it started raining a few hours after we arrived and it has been mostly cloudy and cool ever since, not in a nasty way, just a pleasant cool.

We could have left for Skopje in Macedonia this morning but we wanted a slightly longer stay although we have largely been retracing our steps today, which is fine.

We are staying in teh Hotel Tirana, which is a bit run-down but is very central, almost opposite the main Sinan Mosque, over the river adn next to the Aurora restaurant which does great breakfasts. Across the river, there are wooded hills, with the old town at the bottom, full of cobbled streets, bars, cafes, ice cream parlours, kebab houses, boutique shops, more bars and discos, pubs, churches and so on.

Very full in the evenings when it is warm, not so full when it rained the first night. last night we sat outside a busy pub on the banks of the river chatting with a chap we had met earlier, Ramadan, and a couple of his friends. People are into music and football and know Amstedam from Ajax and from DJ Tiesto (who is not exactly from Amsterdam but close enough for them). They also know my team, Southamption and know that they ended up very near the bottom of the second division (Championship League).

Our new friends were Muslims so they did not join us for a beer but had coffees. However, they do seem to like the odd joint and a bet on the football results, which is quite endearing.

Earlier in the day we had taken a taxi off to a lake near the Albanian border for lunch at the Liqeni fish restaurant at Vermice, the trout having been caught earlier that morning from the pools they have their which are fed from the mountain streams, before the water flows into the lake. It was grilled and served up with chips and salad and was delicious. Cost almost nothing either.

Stopped off at the main vegetable market on the way back, took soem photos and was asked if I could get them printed for them, which had me walk back to town and out again to the market, while Fred had a snooze.

Our evening walk took us to a street corner where we were asked over to joing the men in a coffee and that set us up for the rest of the early evening, with more photos which had to be printed and brought back this morning. The Kosovans tend to know more German than English as so many of them have spent some time in Switzerland, Austria or Germany. The English is picked up at school or from TV and radio.