Field note 16 Favourite Roads
No sign on the road tells you it is there.
West of Pec, in a country that has only existed since 2008, a narrow road turns into one of the least explored corners of the Balkans and climbs between granite walls six hundred metres high.From Rodrigo's road archive
Favourite Roads
No sign on the road tells you it is there.
West of Pec, in a country that has only existed since 2008, a narrow road turns into one of the least explored corners of the Balkans and climbs between granite walls six hundred metres high.
- 600 mGranite walls
- 2008Kosovo's independence
- MontenegroWhere the road ends
West of Pec, in a country that has only existed since 2008, a narrow road turns into one of the least explored corners of the Balkans and climbs between granite walls six hundred metres high.
Still largely unexplored.
Kosovo marked its first decade as an independent country in 2018, and it has only recently appeared on the radar of the bolder travellers. In demographic and administrative terms this diamond shaped nation in the middle of the Balkan peninsula is still unfamiliar territory.
What the road kept
The best road of the trip can be the one nobody signposts.
Nothing marks the turn to Rugova. That is precisely why it is worth finding, and why it stayed on my list of favourites years afterwards.It closes over your head.
West of the city of Pec, with no sign on the road to announce it, a narrow passage turns off into one of the least explored areas of the Balkans: the Rugova gorge.
Once the climb starts you find yourself between granite walls more than six hundred metres high, close enough that they nearly meet overhead. There are waterfalls above and the Drini river below, and the road snakes on through tunnels cut in the rock before ending abruptly at the border with Montenegro.
The danger is not the road.
The difficulty here is not the narrow surface or the blind bends. It is the lorry drivers, who give a motorcycle no room at all.
My read on it is that this is a new country still rebuilding after the war, where the driving test system has not been properly reimplemented, and it shows. It feels like riding in Central America. Agreements with European countries are expected to bring back compulsory theory and practical tests.
The field archive
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