Alex Greenwood, KE’s Head of Marketing, joing KE's Walking in the Balkan Borderlands, where she hiked through the Accursed Mountains from Kosovo to Albania and Montenegro.

 "This is my mountain. I was born there." Pointing to the peak Hjla across the Kosovan mountains, our leader Semir showed us where the border of Montenegro lay. Later, as we walked uphill eating bilberries and wild strawberries, he pointed to where a bear had dug into an underground beehive for the honey. It was recent. The Kosovan mountains are very remote and home to a recovering population of bear. We kept our eyes peeled.

Helen, our amateur flower enthusiast from Huddersfield, was in heaven over the abundant flowers in the pastures, including a yellow bract flower with bright blue leaves. Semir told us that, as a boy, he would use the ‘divizma’ (a type of verbascum), which thrust its yellow flowers high over our heads, to catch fish. Soaking the flowers and seeds in a stream releases a powerful chemical which paralyses the fish. “Of course, it's poisonous, so I had to be careful" he laughs.

So why the Accursed Mountains? The traditional garb for men moving their herds through the mountains included a long white head scarf. This wasn’t just for keeping warm in the harsh winters, but also served as a burial shroud if the man died far from home. Mythically, the locals say that a mother cursed the mountains when all three of her sons disappeared whilst searching for an unwilling bride-to-be who had taken refuge there. Whatever the reason, this is a rather foreboding name for mountains whose beauty can rival any of the greater Alpine ranges.

Peopled by warm and welcoming mountain folk, who are still curious about the few tourists who come here, this area deserves to be better known for the quality of the locally produced food. We ate sumptuously; stuffed vine leaves, fresh goats cheese, fat olives, warm home-made flatbread, stuffed pork with cheese and ham, flija – a huge round traditional pancake, and the freshest pinkest watermelon taken directly from the garden. And not forgetting the local tipple, a fruit brandy known as rakia – which ranged from the Serbian monks’ apple rakia to suspected pure ethanol (billed as sour cherry) in the most remote valley in Albania, to the best wild bilberry rakia in Lepüsh at Guesthouse Alpini. Rakia, it seems, is an everyday essential in the mountains.

Reaching Montenegro we swam in Lake Skadar, a vast freshwater lake straddling the border with Albania. In the morning, crossing the lake, the boat, laden with doughnuts and honey, wine and cheese, chugged slowly up a green delta swarming with many bird species including huge Dalmatian pelicans. Disembarking, we stopped at a café to drink sweet Turkish coffee and watched snakes fishing in the river.

Kotor Fjord made a fitting end to our adventure and a late afternoon boat trip to the Lady of the Rocks didn’t disappoint. To make an island dedicated to the Madonna, two brothers started dropping a rock everyday on a small reef in 1452. Realising this would take a while, the local town filled every captured boat with rocks and sank it – historians reckon there are 100 shipwrecks under the chapel where brides are still married today.

Every single one of my fellow travellers wanted to return to the Balkans before we’d even left. A delightful group of adventurers, I know we will all be back!

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