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Monday, 13 October 2008



Kosovo: A New Country on the Balkans’ Tourist Map



Balkan Travellers   

18 February 2008 | The announcement of Kosovo's independence automatically enlarged the Balkans’ tourist map with one more state. Until now, travel in the territory that was an autonomous Serbian province and a UN protectorate was problematic.

An unclear border regime, issues with green cards for automobiles and other insurance and the danger of unrest discouraged many travellers from going into the territory, causing them to avoid it.

Priština, with its atmosphere of a joyful construction site, surprisingly good cafés and restaurants and a population with an average age between 25 and 30, now has the chance to emerge as a centre of positive energy on the Balkans.

The change is expected to lead to gradual ease in the access to the Serbian cultural heritage on the territory – the numerous Christian monasteries and churches, both intact and in ruins, some of which date back to the fifteenth century.

Entrepreneurs in Kosovo have been claiming for some time that the tension in the now former province and its unclear status hinder the development of many possibilities for eco-tourism, as well as the tourism flow to the ski resort Brezovica. The latter, located in the Sharr Mountain, is often described by experts as one of the best on the Balkans, because of its natural features.
 

Epicure


Turkey
Balkan Culinary Wars III: Other People’s Meatballs

Ćevapčići from Leskovac, köfte from İzmir or Bulgarian kebapche? Greek keftedes too, please!
Full Story



Curiosity Chest


Balkans
In Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, Traces of War Crimes and Criminals Attract Tourists

7 October 2008 | Several countries in the Western Balkans, including Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, are banking on their recent conflict-torn past and offering foreign visitors the chance to retrace the steps of war criminals and see the traces left by the wars that shook the region in the 1990s.
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Annoyances in the Balkans


Kosovo
The Balkans: Natural Born Historians

The obsession with history is so commonplace on the Balkans that local people do not even notice it. For outsiders, however, it quickly becomes a part of the experience of being precisely in the Balkans and nowhere else. Raymond Detrez, a Belgian scholar of Bulgarian and Balkan Studies, describes this sometimes entertaining and other times annoying, and even dangerous, social phenomenon. Full Story


Insiders' Advice


If the relentless homophobia is already that bad, what's the attitude in general towards HIV/AIDS, given the rather worrying HIV-prevalence in Eastern Europe and Russia?
Full Story



Is it easy to drive in the Balkans? Depends. If you are looking for adrenalin, this is a cheap way to get it. Expats say the best tactics is not to get annoyed.
Full Story



How to pick the right time to go? Winter is beautiful in the high mountains, the problem is, it can be so cold! Then again, who cares how cold it is - the locals have a cheap cure: heavy red wine. Sometimes warmed up.
Full Story



You can't trust local maps. Nor some international travel guides. One of them, for instance, says, that Neretva River in Bosnia and Herzegovina flows FROM the Adriatic towards the inland of the Balkans, never reaching the sea. OK, how about the Neretva delta and channel in Croatia?
Full Story



The Big Book of Travelling


United States
The Rise of Burlesque in New York: Tassels and the City

Burlesque – the more audacious relative of commedia dell'arte, is in revival. A reality in “upside down style”, this creative, witty and softer version of striptease is back on stage, following an absence of nearly 80 years. In New York, Anjeza Bojku scoped out several burlesqee venues for BalkanTravellers.com. Full Story

Thailand
A Short Guide to the Peculiarities of Thai Food