Europe's Most Misunderstood Country

Stretching 192km, the Peak of the Balkans Trail bridges three previously war-torn nations and crosses through some of the continent's least-explored landscapes.

Hiking through the green valleys and wildflower-strewn meadows under blazing sunshine, with the gunmetal-grey Albanian Alps towering overhead, I was struck by the utter remoteness of this landscape. Unlike Europe's more famous alpine resorts, there were no hotels or ski lifts in sight. 

Instead, the sweeping setting evoked a startling sense of isolation, and I couldn't help but feel I'd entered a back-of-the-wardrobe secret land that had somehow evaded the attention of the outside world.

Stretching from Northern Albania into southern Kosovo and north-eastern Montenegro, the Albanian Alps are better known by their local Albanian (Bjeshkët e Nëmuna) and Serbo-Croatian (Prokletije) names – both of which mean "The Accursed Mountains". 

Yet, the question of how these serrated limestone slopes got their unusual moniker remains something of a mystery.

According to local legend, the devil escaped from hell and created the jagged glacial karsts in a single day of mischief. Some say the alps' name stems from a woman who cursed the mountains when she was trekking through them with her children on a scorching-hot day and couldn't find any water. 

Others claim Slavic soldiers gave the mountains their name as they struggled to march through them. In a way, the peaks' puzzling origin story is something of a metaphor for Albania as a whole.  READ MORE...