It was still dark when the smell of coffee filled our log cabin on the Via Dinarica. The trail stretches across the western Balkan peninsula. We were in the Stujeska National Park in Bosnia-Herzegovina and had completed the first two days of a week-long, cross-border trek. The country's highest peak, Maglic (2386 m), and dense forests separated us from Montenegro. As the aroma of roasted coffee beans reached our bunk beds, the world around us - the valleys, rivers, chamois, goats, villages, sheep, cowbells, farms, wineries, roosters, olive groves and meadows full of colourful wildflowers - seemed to come to life with us in one fell swoop, as if an alarm clock spanning the Balkans was ringing on the bedside table. On the trail, morning coffee is sacred - everywhere, but nowhere more so than in the Balkans and the Via Dinarica, which connects the peaks and remotest areas of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. No matter which section you hike on this 1931 km trail, the thick, liquid, black brew is more than a pick-me-up with addictive potential. Here, where the Orient meets the Occident, drinking coffee is a metaphor for life. Your metal camping mug holds history. It holds the dawn and a promise. It holds centuries of gossip and scandal. A cup filled with vanished empires: the Greeks and the Romans. Byzantium, the Ottomans, Austria-Hungary. It overflows with debauched stories and comrades gathered around a sparse wooden table. "Kafa" is enjoyed with a hand-rolled cigarette and a glass of the local liquor. In the Balkans, coffee is both an elaborate ritual and a caffeinated elixir.

What is true for the "Kafa" is also true for the Via Dinarica, which offers easy to moderately difficult sections as well as parts that are technically demanding. The trail connects seven countries, dozens of national parks and Unesco World Heritage Sites, as well as some of the highest peaks in the region. But the trail is more than that: it is a cultural corridor that welcomes time travellers and history lovers with open arms, whether for three months or three days. The trail is like a magnifying glass under which you can get a glimpse of the last original communities in Europe. Morning here means hikers peeling out of sleeping bags, donning headlamps, lacing up boots. But the first rays of sun also mean that the time has come for the farmers in the villages to light the embers in cast-iron stoves. That the shepherds are stepping out of their nomadic camps and checking their flocks on the dew-covered hills as if nothing had changed since time immemorial. The Via Dinarica concept has been around for ten years. The route, a patchwork of pastoral paths, old trade routes, military roads and mountain routes, was officially opened in 2010. In 2013, almost all the paths were catalogued and surveyed. Since then, the Via Dinarica has led to cross-border cooperation between the successor states of Yugoslavia and Albania, which now jointly promote this adventure playground for travellers.

"The appealing thing about the Via Dinarica is that it sometimes takes tourists to places they never even knew existed," explains Aleksandar Donev, head of an authority in Macedonia dedicated to promoting and supporting tourism. "But equally appealing is the fact that local people - from Slovenia to Macedonia - have the opportunity to pass on traditions that have been handed down for generations. After all, the latest trend in tourism is real-life experiences. Well, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of years of real-life experiences waiting to be discovered." After drinking the coffee and stowing our stuff in the backpacks - cheese slices, sausages and nuts end up among the foul-weather clothes - we leave the hut and start the rocky ascent to Maglic, the roof of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We climb slowly, almost vertically, using only handholds. One foot carefully in front of the other. When we reach the summit, I catch up with Thierry Joubert, a hiking buddy who has accompanied me regularly for the last three years and has explored almost every metre of the Via Dinarica.

"The Via Dinarica always presents itself differently, because you can interpret the landscape, culture and history in so many ways," says Joubert, director of Green Visions, an adventure travel company in Sarajevo. "Through Croatia you walk parallel to the Adriatic Sea, in Albania the peaks rise around you. In Macedonia, you cross a mountain range that marks the border with Kosovo. This trail leads hikers to untouched peaks. You can visit villages and flocks of sheep that may not exist in ten years." On the other side of the mountain, Montenegro is waiting for us. We stand on the ridge and take a break leaning on our hiking poles. The heart-shaped glacial lake Trnovacko spreads out below us - a postcard motif. After a few minutes we move on. The crossing of the border and a new country seem to inspire Joubert. When he has a few metres head start, he turns around and says: "At the next clearing, I'll get out my gas cooker and we'll make a coffee first."