Prizren II
We liked it so much the first time that we had to return!!
On the first trip to Prizren we didn't have the opportunity to visit the Orthodox Church of Bogorodica Ljeviska (1307) and castle on the hill just outside of town. So this trip was about trying to get to them! Onward.
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Here are our traveling companions for this trip. On the right is Kathy who is the English language coordinator for the American University in Kosovo and her friend, Unhe, who came to visit from Korea. |
| To get to the castle and church we had to walk up into the hills on the other side of the river. Little did we know that to get to the church and castle one has to pass through a Serbian enclave with sections protected by KFOR troops. When one looks at the bombed out buildings one can begin the see why. The main path was sealed off and no matter how persuasive we were, the German troops wouldn't let us go up the main way. |  |
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So we went looking for a way around their check point. We came upon this girl washing a rug and another young Serb male. He understood our dilemma, via our pantomimes, and pointed out a back way around the check point and up to the castle. Unfortunately, the church was under direct guard and there was no way we were going to get in. |
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So up the hill we went and went and went. Many of the homes were still in a state of disrepair from shelling during the war. And folks were still living in these homes-complete with satellite dish! |
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One man came out and we thought he was mad at us due to his hand motions. But then he had Jim go into his house and showed him how the ceiling was falling in. We really did not understand the significance of this but hypothesized that he was wanting us to fix his house. |
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When we got to the castle, many of these rooms had their ceilings falling in. Kids that we ran into kept warning us to watch out. Ah, we thought, maybe this is what the man was trying to tell us when Jim went into his house? Watch out for falling ceilings! The castle was really more like a ruins. The outer wall, that is visible from town, looks like a well preserved fortress. But once we got up there, there were mainly stacks of rocks and these rooms. |
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The view from the castle down into the town of Prizren. Unhe, Cathy and Jim. Jim is nearly camouflaged! |