The Peak of the Balkans Trail: Europe's last true wilderness

The Peak of the Balkans Trail: Europe's last true wilderness jahmaica/Alamy The Peak of the Balkans Trail: Europe's last true wilderness 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. Stretching from Northern Albania into southern Kosovo and north-eastern Montenegro, the Albanian Alps are better known by their local Albanian and Serbo-Croatian names – both of which mean "The Accursed Mountains". After World War Two, authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha effectively sealed the mountainous nation off from the outside world for four decades; banning religion ; forbidding travel and leading Edi Rama, the nation's current prime minister, to say Albania was once "the North Korea of Europe". One of its most audacious projects in recent memory is the Peaks of the Balkans: a 192km circular hiking trail connecting Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo through a series of pathways straddling the Accursed Mountains. Peter Elia The Peak of the Balkans Trail straddles the Accursed Mountains and crosses three countries In 1998, when Agon was 13, his father had to protect his family from Yugoslav forces moving in from Serbia and Montenegro as tensions rose between ethnic Albanians, ethnic Serbs and the Yugoslav government.