The story of Gračanica monastery

On the southern wall of this church, its founder left his own words: he had seen the ruins and decay of the Holy Virgin's temple of Gračanica, so he built it from the ground and painted and decorated it inside and out. That founder was the Serbian king Stefan Milutin, and the church, completed in 1321, was one of his last great endowments. It replaced an older 13th-century cathedral on the same spot, about 5 kilometres from Pristina.

Look at its walls of alternating brick and stone, and at the central dome resting on four free-standing pillars, surrounded by four smaller domes. Inside, frescoes painted in 1321 and 1322 are well preserved. In the narthex you will find portraits of King Milutin and Queen Simonida, and the first painted family tree of the Nemanjić dynasty.

Since the Second World War the monastery has been a convent, and in 2006 it joined UNESCO's World Heritage List as part of the Medieval Monuments in Kosovo.