Prevalla, the mountain pass between Prizren and Brezovica

From the walls of Prizren’s fortress you can see the mountains that close off the valley to the east. Prevalla is up there, on the pass. It’s the quickest way to swap an Ottoman town for high mountain, which is why I’d suggest it to anyone with a free morning in Prizren.

A pass, not a village

It helps to arrive with the right picture. Prevalla isn’t listed as a settlement in the 2024 census table of the Kosovo Agency of Statistics (ASK), so I can’t give you a population. OpenStreetMap puts it in Prizren municipality, right inside Sharr National Park, and the photo on this page shows what it is, meadows, a scatter of buildings and a wooded slope behind.

The natural values paper published by Kosovo’s Environmental Protection Agency (AMMK) lists it among the park’s tourism zones, for summer and winter stays, day trips and as a through route. In other words, the park authority itself sees it as a front door.

The forest that makes it special

What would get me up there is the forest. The same paper ranks Prevalla among the best-preserved stands of Bosnian pine in the park, a mountain species the directorate treats as a relic, growing between 1,500 and 1,900 m. On the south slope of Oshlak, in the Prevalla area, sits the Rrobulli strict nature reserve, 30 ha in size. The directorate’s 2008 report adds that it was declared a reserve in 1960 and falls in IUCN category I, the highest level of protection.

Prevalla also feeds two rivers. Its streams run to the Lumbardhi, which flows down to Prizren, and to the Lepenc, which heads towards Kaçanik.

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What the park authority warned about

There’s one fact I think is fair to share. In its 2008 report on the state of natural resources, the park directorate criticised a development plan for Prevalla with more than 360 buildings on 17 ha, plus a summer campsite, and called it contrary to the park’s law. I have no official source on what was built afterwards, so I won’t claim anything. What I take from it is an attitude. If you go up, stick to clear paths, leave nothing behind and treat the old forest with respect, the way you would in a Scottish nature reserve.

Fitting it into your trip

Going by OpenStreetMap’s road layout, the route climbs from Prizren up the Lumbardhi valley, passes the Holy Archangels Monastery on the way out of town, tops the pass and descends on the other side towards Brezovica and Shtërpcë. Official bus times proved impossible to find, so plan on a car or a pre-booked taxi, which the FCDO recommends over hailing one in the street. Driving is on the right.

My own plan would be simple. A morning at Prevalla, a short walk along the forest edge, then back down to Prizren for lunch. With a car and a full day, I’d carry on to Brezovica and return the same way. Bring a warm layer even in August, because this is high ground and ASK publishes no weather data for the area.

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