On a rocky hill above the town of Novi Pazar stands a small, round church, and it may be the oldest in Serbia. Petrova crkva, the church of St Peter, is a rotunda from the ninth or tenth century, built on the site of earlier foundations, and the medieval ruler Stefan Nemanja, who founded the Serbian state and the dynasty that followed, is said to have been baptised here. Its stone walls are worn, its interior is dim and its setting, with the town spreading out below and the hills behind, makes you feel the age. The surrounding area was the heart of the early Serbian kingdom, called Ras, and the area is protected as a World Heritage site, together with the nearby monastery of Sopocani.
Sopocani is a different kind of marvel. King Uros I founded the monastery in the 1260s, and its church holds frescoes that are counted among the finest of medieval Europe, with a blue so deep and figures so fluid that they stand comparison with the work of the Italian masters who came a generation later. The Dormition of the Virgin, painted on the west wall, is a work that visitors travel far to see. The road on to Studenica, the mother church of the Serbian Orthodox faith, runs through the valley of the Ibar and into the hills, passing forests, small farms and villages with orchards.
The riding is the main reason to come this way. The roads climb and fall through the green hills of the Raska region, with bends that tighten and open, and the surface is mostly decent, though it can be patched and uneven, and trucks use the Ibar valley road. The mountain of Kopaonik rises to the north, with high roads that are quiet and cool in summer, and snow-covered in winter. In spring the orchards bloom, and in autumn the beech woods turn copper.
Novi Pazar is a lively town of about eighty-five thousand people with a mainly Muslim population, quite different from much of Serbia, and its old Ottoman bazaar, mosques and teahouses give it a feel of a market town in another country. There are plenty of fuel stations and cheap places to eat, and the local grilled sausages, kebab-style cevapi, and burek pastry are excellent. Monasteries expect modest dress, with shoulders and knees covered, and a quiet voice.