About an hour-and-a-half drive west from Prishtina, Kosovo’s fourth-largest city (pop. around 83,000) sits dramatically beneath the mountains beside the fast-flowing Lumbardhi River. Founded likely during the Roman era and flourishing under medieval Serbian rulers and later the Ottomans. There was a lot of devastation here duing the war in the 1990s, but today Peja has a more relaxed, outdoorsy feel than the capital, blending Ottoman-era streetscapes with socialist-era apartment blocks and newer postwar development. Its restored old quarter, the Old Bazaar (Çarshia e Gjatë), largely dates to the Ottoman period, especially the 15th to 18th centuries, when it became an important regional trading center. The quarter is pretty compact — just a few pedestrianized cobblestone streets rather than an extensive historic core — but forms the city´s atmospheric heart, lined with cafés, craft shops, and low-rise Ottoman-style buildings. Then most of modern Peja spreads beyond it in wider boulevards and residential districts. The most prominent local landmark is the 13th-century Patriarchate of Peć, a Serbian Orthodox monastery complex famed for its frescoes (and also part of UNESCO´s "Medieval Monuments in Kosovo"), and other highlights include the Bajrakli Mosque, founded in 1471, and the Museum of Peja (Ethnological Museum), housed in a restored Ottoman guesthouse. Then of course there´s the dramatic mountain scenery just beyond the city (read on below).
Read more in my post What Do You Know About Kosovo? An Introduction, Plus 7 of Its Top Destinations.
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