Klina, the White Drin plain with three protected Orthodox sites

Klina (Klinë in Albanian) is the municipality you cross going from Peja towards central Kosovo, nearly always without stopping. I will not pretend it is a destination, but it has three Orthodox sites protected by law and a back door to the Mirusha waterfalls that justify an hour.

Plain, river and figures

Klina lies on the White Drin plain, east of Peja. ASK, the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, counted 30,503 people in 2024, against 38,496 in 2011, across 54 settlements. Do the sum and that is almost 8,000 fewer residents, 21 % in thirteen years, the steepest fall of the region’s three municipalities. Klina town had 5,527, followed by Drsnik, Sferkë, Gllarevë and Jashanicë. According to OpenStreetMap it makes up the Peja region with Peja and Istog.

Budisavci, the Hermits and Dolac

The 2008 Special Protective Zones law (03/L-039) names three Orthodox sites in Klina. Budisavci, a monastery, and the Hermits’ church at Uljaricë have zones with their own maps; Dolac monastery, in the village of Dollc, has a 50 m band around it. It is the same law that protects the Patriarchate of Peć and the larger monasteries elsewhere in Kosovo.

I have not found opening times or visiting rules from an official source. My advice is the usual for these places, modest dress, discretion and no assumption that it will be open. I cover them all in Kosovo’s Orthodox monasteries.

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Two Bronze Age sites

The Culture Ministry’s DTK register has only two entries for Klina, both Bronze Age, the prehistoric site of Rigjeva at Gllarevë and the Illyrian burial mounds of Boka at Përçevë. As far as I can tell they are not set up for visitors, but they show this plain was lived on thousands of years ago.

Are the Mirusha waterfalls in Klina?

Here the sources disagree, and I would rather say so. OpenStreetMap places the Mirusha waterfalls protected area beside Dush, a Klina village; ASK puts the settlement of Mirushë in Malishevë municipality, in the Prizren region. The canyon lies between the two, so both versions make sense. For you, the practical point is that Klina is a good northern approach if you are coming from Peja. One FCDO health note applies here, too. Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever is endemic in Kosovo, especially around Malishevë in summer, so in the countryside wear long trousers and use a tick repellent.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Peja and pick one that fits your day.

How I would do it

I would not stay in Klina. Peja has far more choice and is close. I would treat it as a stop of an hour or two on the way to Pristina or Mirusha, by car, bearing in mind the FCDO advice not to drive at night in Kosovo and that your green card does not cover you here.

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