Day 38 - An afternoon stroll to a monastery (Peja)

Peja, Kosovo

Another day, another city.

I made the decision yesterday to cut my time short in Prizren just so I could spend a couple days in Peja instead.

Again today I was the last one to wake up but, honestly, it was 9am.

How was everybody out of the dorm room before 9am?

By 10am I was all packed up and out the door.

Peja here I come!

Hello Peja!

To get to Peja which is 100km north or Prizren, I had to first catch a bus to Gjakova in between the two cities.

That bus took an hour and cost 3€ ($5). Ten minutes later I caught the next bus to Peja. Again it took about an hour and cost 3€ as well.

It’s actually pretty easy to travel between the cities as there were buses running pretty much every 15 minutes or half hour.

I eventually arrived in Peja at just after 1pm.

Time to get to my hostel…

The invisible hostel

The walk to the hostel took about 30 minutes but I didn’t mind too much as it gave me a chance to walk through the city and explore a little before I got there.

After a half hour walk, I turned the corner onto the street the hostel was on and got to where the map marker was.

No sign. No nothing.

Hmmm…

After staying in over 100 hostels all over the world, this was a first.

I looked up the hostel booking on my phone to find the address.

It was at number 10A.

I was in front of two properties side by side. One was #8 which had the same balcony depicted in the website photo and one was #10 which had a sign for Kosovo Adventures.

Neither was 10A but I knew I was in the right spot.

I pressed the ring doorbell for both.

No answer.

Well, this is a pickle.

I eventually plugged in the hostel’s phone number into my WhatsApp and messaged them.

Thankfully the hostel owner got back to me promptly and instructed me how to get in the hostel.

By the way, I had to enter the gate at #8 and you had to go up the stairs on the outside of the building to get to the 3rd floor where there is the hostel’s name sketched into the glass door.

Sure, now that I look up and closely at the door I see it, but c’mon, put a sign up for pete’s sake!

Anyway, I finally found the reception area and the owner wasn’t there. It was his mom who spoke broken English.

She didn’t understand I had a reservation so I just said I wanted a private room for two nights.

She charged me 28€ for each night which was higher than the 25€ on HostelWorld but didn’t include that ridiculous tax of 48€ I was going be charged through the reservation.

By the way, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, go back and read yesterday’s blog.

Anyway, in the end I paid 56€ but I was expecting to pay 90€ so, in my head, I saved 34€ ($50).

I call that a win.

The hostel itself is more like someone’s house. I think they have two private rooms and one dorm room. I only saw one other person while I was here today and, honestly, for a long while I thought I was the only one staying here.

No worries though, I’m loving having a private room with a big bed and full control on the a/c.

It’s just a nice little splurge as I head into the final days of this trip.

Lunch

After settling in, I was on the hunt for lunch.

I hadn’t eaten anything yet today and, by now, I was starving.

I will say one thing that I’ve found very annoying in both Albania and here in Kosovo are the number of café/bars in the city.

You walk down the street seeing all these places with patio tables set up and none of them serve food.

It’s actually quite frustrating when you’re in the search for food and every place you see is just another café/bar.

Eventually, though, I did come across a restaurant.

There are two types of restaurants here. The most common by far are the restaurants that serve grilled meats.

The other type is the hotel type restaurants that serve a variety of food like you would see on a menu back home.

And I’ve kind of found myself in a crossroads now with food.

Truthfully, I’m kind of over eating grilled meat dishes all the time so my meals lately have been more “regular” meals like seafood dishes or risottos.

Today for lunch I had a veal tartare appetizer and shrimp risotto.

That’s pretty much as far away from grilled meats as you can get.

It was amazing, by the way.

I’m a sucker for a good tartare and if I see it on a menu, I’ll usually order it.

Patriarchate of Peć Monastery

The monastery is about a half hour walk from the city center and I decided I’d go in the late afternoon as the sun was going down.

At quarter to five I started the stroll along the riverbanks to the monastery.

I actually timed it perfectly because, unknown to me, the monastery actually closes at 6pm.

I got there at 5:15 giving me just enough time to explore the grounds before they closed up shop for the day.

Interesting note with the monastery though is that there is a guard in a booth before you go in who will ask for your passport so they can track the comings and goings of who’s going inside.

So, if you go there without your passport, you’re gonna be doing the long walk back for it.

As for touring the monastery, it was actually quite peaceful.

I was the only one there aside from the people who lived and worked there and I was able to just stroll around the ground unimpeded.

Considering I’m an atheist, I’ve actually visited quite a few churches and monasteries on this trip. I guess I can put that alongside my attendance to Sunday Mass by Pope Francis back in my first Euro Trip.