A weekend in Pristina

The Guardian marks the introduction of Kosovo's new consitution by adding an article about Pristina to its "Instant Weekend" city break series.

Adventure and history in Kosovo

It's not difficult to predict that Kosovo will make several appearances in our newspapers over the coming months, as the wrangling over its political future continues. So it's nice to see it appearing in the press for a different reason. Last week USA Today published an article entitled "Kosovo offers unspeakable beauty, history and adventure", looking at the region's attractions for travellers.

The writer scrupulously describes the Serbian as well as Albanian component of Kosovo's heritage, topping and tailing the article with a description of the Orthodox Decani monastery. With sad inevitability, most of the reader's comments on the article display the kind of one-eyed negativity likely to cause prospective travellers to put off visiting Kosovo for, oh, another 20 years or so.

New Kosovo guidebook

Bradt Guides have recently published the first guidebook in the English-speaking world dedicated to Kosovo. The authors promise that the curious traveller will find "Ottoman mosques, Tito-esque administration buildings, Serbian Orthodox churches, monasteries, vineyards and extravagant KLA war memorials", as well as "some of the best skiing in southeastern Europe". It seems unlikely that Bradt will be overwhelmed by a rush of tourists eager to get their hands on the new guide, but it should find a market among the many "internationals" currently resident in the region.

Bradt have now achieved complete coverage of the Western Balkans, with seven separate guides to the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as one on Albania. They are also turning their attention to the eastern half of the peninsula, with the first edition of their Bulgaria guide due out later this year.

Balkans Peace Park nominated for tourism award

The Balkans Peace Park is a project aimed at creating a transnational park in the remote mountain region where the borders of Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania come together.

The project has recently been nominated for the British Guild of Travel Writers annual Tourism Awards, in the category "best overseas tourism project". One of the criteria for the prize is that the project should "allow for interested travellers to explores landscapes, communities and cultures which might otherwise be off limits" - which seems to be a perfect description of the Peace Park.

A shortlist of three contenders will be chosen on 12 September, with the winner to be announced on 11 November. Best wishes from Balkanology to everyone involved.

More about the nomination (PDF file)
More about the Balkan Peace Park Project

Guidebook news: Belgrade, Kosovo, and more

From Serbia news reaches me of a new entrant in a surprisingly crowded field: city guides to Belgrade. How to Conquer Belgrade is a locally produced guidebook that aims to provide visitors with an insider's view of the city, taking an honest and wryly humorous look at Serbia's idiosyncractic capital. In addition to the usual descriptions of monuments and museums, you can find out about the best songs to request from a Roma brass band, which cafes are frequented by girls who like books, and which part of the stadium you should sit in at a Red Star home game. The guide comes with a separate map of the city, and is available in six languages.

Another new city guide is the Bradt Mini Guide to Zagreb. Croatia's capital is often overshadowed by the more obvious attractions of the coast, so it's nice to see it getting a guidebook if its own. Bradt have also published new editions of their guides to Croatia and Dubrovnik.

Lonely Planet have also been updating their range of single-country guides. The 4th edition of Romania and Moldova is still, as far as I know, the only guidebook with any kind of decent coverage of Moldova. Although I prefer the Rough Guide to Romania, right now LP is considerably more up to date - hopefully Rough Guides will follow suit with a new edition soon. Meanwhile Lonely Planet Slovenia has moved on to its 5th edition.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of news is about a book that doesn't yet exist. Bradt Guides have pioneered the publication of dedicated guides to small Balkan countries, so it's not surprising that they plan to produce the first English-language Guide to Kosovo. The expected publication date is September 2007 - sadly too late for the hordes of foreign tourists who are no doubt planning to descend on Kosovo this summer.

Railway revival in Kosovo and Macedonia

After a six-year break, Skopje and Pristina are once again linked by a passenger rail service. According to a report in the Southeast European Times, there will be two daily services in each direction.