Topic: Europe
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I rocked up here knowing nothing about the place apart from the fact it's closer to home, and flights here are cheap. I remember that it was run by a leader that even the communists though was a nutter till the 90's. It's also the bunker capital of the world, you know I love a good bunker. Pleasently surprised to find a modern city full of parks and art. Tirana has three cafes per square foot. Definately not a place for vegos. Most cafes serve a large range of roast dead things, with cheap beer. A souva and a drink costs about $5. Coffee $1. Comes in a tiny cup. I need to learn the word for big. They even spell as well as I do. A couple of hours flying time from England in the right direction, l’ll work on the next leg from here as there are worse places to be stuck. Albania has more than its fair share of beaches, and scenic walks through the mountains. Walk uphill, or sit on a beach, bit of a no-brainer really. Time to head south. Durrës and Vlorë. First is the main port town for Terana. Great bits of fading communist infrastructure on the beach. The Soviet era monument has seen better days. Main street has a pub at one end and a mosque at the other, with plenty of fun in between. A big ferry port, you can get a boat to just about anywhere. I could stay here but the weather is lousy, and transport south involves a lot of informal transport, in a language I don’t speak. Fortunately there is always a doggy taxi driver nearby. For a local fortune, about $25, I get whisked twenty klicks down the road, and dropped in the middle of a freeway. Eventually a bus pulls up. I hop on, and for the next three hours I stand in the aisle. Vlorë is a big beach town. Very pretty, you can see it goes off here during holiday season. I grab a nice hotel, and find a local Albanian restaurant. I can highly recommend the lamb with yoghurt, or the local meatballs.
For some reason Albanian buses all leave from the middle of nowhere. I was dropped off half an hours walk into town. My next stop Sarandë involves me getting back there again. I catch the local bus which is sort of heading in the right direction. Then walk till I see buses, then mumble something which I think sounds like the place I’m going to the locals. After some pointing and grunting, the appropriate bus is found. And it’s leaving shortly. Bonus. We’re off back into town. An hour after I left my hotel I’m back there again picking up passengers out the front of it. Well I tried.
Last stop Sarandë, another beach town at the bottom of the country. You can see Corfu, Greece half an hour across the water. My plan is to get to Athens from here, via a bus that may or may not exist. On the way here we went past lots of beautiful beach’s and this town is another. I’ve got a couple of days, so I book a cheap hotel and my bus out. It wasn’t that hard, it even leaves from the center of town. Time for a beer and a bit of beach therapy. All the pieces are in place. What could go wrong from here.
Albania is one of the nicest places I have been to. Get there before the rest of the world catches on to it.
Posted by bondrj
at 12:01 AM NZT
Updated: Wednesday, 5 October 2022 4:33 PM NZT
