The mountain gateway of Kosovo — the Patriarchate of Peć, the Rugova Canyon, and the best outdoor markets in the western Balkans
Peja (Peć in Serbian) is the largest town in western Kosovo — 95km west of Pristina, at the mouth of the Rugova Canyon where the White Drin River exits the Prokletije mountains (the 'Accursed Mountains', the highest range in the western Balkans outside the Slovenian Alps). The Patriarchate of Peć — a medieval Serbian Orthodox monastery complex at the canyon's entrance — is one of the most important religious sites in the Serbian Orthodox world and was the seat of the Serbian Patriarchate from the 14th to 18th centuries; it's now protected by KFOR troops, in a UNESCO World Heritage site surrou…
Peć was the seat of the Serbian Patriarchate from 1346 to 1766 — the highest religious authority of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which made the Patriarchate monastery one of the most significant Serbian institutions of the medieval and Ottoman periods. The town was a major Ottoman market and administrative centre; the old çarshi (16th–17th century) served the trade routes across the Prokletije mountains connecting the Adriatic coast (Shkodër) with the Kosovo plateau. In the 1998–1999 Kosovo War, Peja suffered significant destruction and was the scene of mass displacement of the Albanian popul…