Hani i Elezit, the last stop before North Macedonia

For most travellers, Hani i Elezit is a border rather than a place. It’s where you stop the car, show your passport and buy your insurance. Fair enough, but the municipality has a protected corner few people know about, and it helps to know what’s waiting at the crossing before you arrive.

The region’s smallest municipality

The Kosovo Agency of Statistics (ASK) counted 8,533 residents in Hani i Elezit (in Serbian, Elez Han) in 2024, across 11 settlements. It’s the smallest of the five municipalities in the Ferizaj region. The main settlement, Han i Elezit, had 2,555, followed by Seçishtë (2,123) and Paldenicë (1,629), where the heritage database lists a 1st-century Roman site, even though its record files it under Kaçanik municipality. It isn’t the only municipality in the region losing people; Shtime, north of Ferizaj, fell from 27,324 residents in 2011 to 24,308 in 2024, according to ASK.

The border, in practice

OpenStreetMap marks the border crossing right by the town, on the road to Skopje, plus a railway station on the line from Ferizaj. Crossing hours and waiting times aren’t published officially, and I’d rather leave them out than guess.

What the FCDO does publish applies directly here. Expect delays crossing into North Macedonia at the height of summer or over holiday periods, it says. Your green card means nothing here, so drivers buy Kosovan third-party insurance on the spot, and you’ll want euro notes for that, not sterling. On hire cars, the FCDO only mentions Serbian firms, many of which won’t let their vehicles into Kosovo. For a car hired in Skopje there’s no official guidance, so I’d ask when booking. I cover it in driving in Kosovo and on the Skopje to Pristina route.

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The Bravë quarter

The corner worth the detour is at Puset e Nikës, the settlement ASK calls Pustenik, with 403 people in 2024. The Ministry of Culture database (DTK) protects three Ottoman-era sites there, all linked to the Bravë family. One is the quarter itself, «Lagja e Bravëve», a 19th-century architectural and historic ensemble on the 2021 provisional protection list. The other two are family houses, the 19th-century tower house of Nuhi Bravë and the house of Islam, Nazmi and Rufat Bravë.

I like it because this is domestic heritage rather than monumental. Stone tower houses, Kosovo’s typical kullas, in a quarter protected as a whole. No opening times or guided visits are published, so you see it from outside and with respect, because these are family homes. I go into these tower houses in my guide to kullas in Kosovo.

How I’d fit it in

Coming from Skopje, Hani i Elezit is your first taste of Kosovo. My advice is to take the border calmly, buy the insurance if you’re driving and plan nothing more in the municipality than a loop round Puset e Nikës if time allows. Heading out towards Skopje, stop first in Kaçanik, which has more to see, and leave a margin for the queue.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Ferizaj on GetYourGuide.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Ferizaj for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.