Kosovo. The very name conjures images of genocide and ethnic cleansing, of a small, landlocked country in the heart of the Balkans that fought a brutal war of independence to free itself from Serbian control between 1998 and 1999.
More than two decades on, thousands of NATO troops are still on the ground in Kosovo to keep the uneasy peace forged between the Muslim majority (who identify as Kosovo Albanians) and Kosovo Serbs, who are Orthodox Christians. Unsurprisingly, Kosovo remains one of the least-visited places in Europe. In 2019, the most recent year for which government statistics are available, only 177,000 foreigners entered, around the same number who visited nearby Croatia every three days.
Recently I spent two days riding through Kosovo while transiting between the more popular touring destinations of Montenegro and North Macedonia. I had heard through the grapevine there was nothing much to see or do there, yet it turned out to
