The 8,714-foot Gjeravica mountain — the one we’d just climbed — sits in the Accursed Mountains, which straddle the borders of Kosovo, Montenegro, and Albania. For much of the past century ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. With aching legs and bursting lungs, we staggered up the rocky tip of Mount Gjeravica, Kosovo’s highest mountain.