Peja's bazaar, the long street of the old market

If I only had an hour in Peja, I would spend it in the bazaar. It is not a grand bazaar or a restored set piece for visitors; it is an old shopping street still doing its job, with low shops, people running errands and the minaret of the mosque at the far end. That is exactly why I like it.

A long street and a square

OpenStreetMap names the street Qarshija e Gjatë, the long bazaar, and marks it as pedestrian; the area around it appears as Çarshia e Vjetër, the old bazaar. The header photo here says it better than I can, with low frontages on both sides and the mountains closing off the view.

At one end stands the Bajrakli Mosque, dated to the 16th century by the Culture Ministry’s heritage database (DTK). At the other, the bazaar spills into Haxhi Zeka square, the social heart of Peja, with its café terraces and the evening comings and goings.

The buildings around it

Unlike Gjakova’s, Peja’s bazaar has no DTK record of its own as an ensemble, but it is ringed by buildings protected individually. Besides the Bajrakli, the database lists the Hamam Mosque, another 16th-century mosque, Tahir Bey’s konak and Jashar Pasha’s kulla and konak, all 19th century, and Haxhi Zeka’s mill complex, also 19th century and permanently protected.

Tahir Bey’s konak deserves a look. According to pejatourism.org, the town’s tourism site, whose owner is not stated (so a secondary source), it houses the town museum, on the square that links the centre with the bazaar, with around 2,000 ethnographic and archaeological items. I won’t give opening hours because I have not seen them from an official source. I set it against the other collections in museums in Kosovo.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Peja before prices climb.

Shopping and spending

I have no official source on what the shops sell or at what price, so I won’t pretend to give you a souvenir list. What I will say is that the walk is free, as is most of what you see from the street, which makes it one of the best no-cost plans in the area. On a tight budget, it pairs well with the free things to do in Kosovo I have rounded up.

One practical point from the FCDO that applies to any busy street in Kosovo is to watch your card the whole time you’re paying and, where possible, to take cash from machines inside a bank. The currency is the euro, so change pounds before you arrive or draw cash on the spot.

When to go

I’d go twice. First in the morning, with the shops open and the town at work, and again around sunset, when the light comes in low along the street and people come out to stroll. In between, the Patriarchate of Peć and the first kilometres of the Rugova Canyon round off the day without taking you far from town.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Peja bazaar and choose by the reviews.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Peja before prices climb.