On our drive to Serbia, we left Pristina and made two stops. The first stop was to visit the Serbian Orthodox monastery in Gracanica. The second stop was about 30 minutes away - the ruins of the medieval castle in Novo Brdo.
The Serb village of Gracanica is just outside of the Kosovo capital, Pristina, and is home to about 13,000 Kosovo Serbs. The Serbian government funds services in the village including health centers and university faculties linked to the Serb-language university in Metrovica offering distance learning. Serb government facilities also issue passports, birth certificates, and business registration. This is a small Serbian Orthodox chapel much like those we saw in Slovenia and Croatia (except for the architecture). The chapel is right in the town center.
A photo of what was inside of the chapel - small icons, flowers, and photos of presumably deceased loved ones.
The green market in Gracanica. The small village was lively with lots of people walking around. The road from Pristina to Skopje, Macedonia goes right through the center of town and past the monastery.
A Serbian babushka rolling her wheelbarrow filled with produce to the green market. You can also see the Pristina-Skopje road that goes through town.
A view of the monastery from the entrance. Inside of the grounds, there were nuns all around. There was also a gift shop where I bought a couple of small icons and some plum brandy made by the Serbian monks. They were also selling rosaries made of wool. The rosaries had 100 beads and no decades. The monastery is considered to be one of the finest examples of late Byzantine architecture and contains some of the best-preserved 14th century frescoes. The monastery church was funded by Serbian King Milutin. During his reign (1284-1321), the Serbian kingdom extended to the Adriatic coast, and Skopje (now Macedonia) was its capital.
The well-preserved frescoes inside of the church were the works of a team of painters assembled by King Milutin.
One of the several altars with icons inside of the church.
Another altar with frescoes and icons.
The monastery church had 4 domes and each of those areas had an altar.
The ceilings of the domes were painted with images of God, Jesus, and saints.
Another ceiling painting with frescoes on the walls.
On our way to Serbiaafter leaving Gracanica, we went off of the main road to visit Novo Brdo which was at one time the largest city in Kosovo. In medieval times, the town had a population of over 40,000 people. The town's importance came from the silver mine in the area, and this is a photo of a mining area, but there are no active mines today.
A view of the castle at Novo Brdo. The castle was built in the 13th century. In the middle of the 15th century, Turks took over the town and continued the mining. Because of the importance of the silver mines, Novo Brdo was granted special exemption from some of the Ottoman taxes and rules, and most of the town remained Christian throughout the Ottoman rule.
Frank waving near the top of the hill inside of the castle fortification.
This is all that is left of the castle, and it was too difficult to climb inside of the area where the castle interior existed. We were the only tourists at the site. There were a few workmen building a retaining wall at the bottom of the hill but no other people. We walked to the top and then around the perimeter of the castle walls.
One side of the castle ruins with a cross designed on the flat wall..
The view from the castle was beautiful.
Another view from the castle - you can see a small lookout in the center of the photo. About a mile from the castle, there is a parking area, and a visitors' area is being built along with a well-designed pathway leading from the parking area to the castle hill. So far, the pathway goes only to the bottom of the hill.
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