Albania

After our time in Montenegro (prior to visiting Kosovo and North Macedonia), we took a bus to Shkodër in Albania. We found Shkodër to be a pleasant town with a lively evening vibe. We stayed in a nice hostel with a bar downstairs and spent a tired, hot, and lethargic afternoon exploring the city. We made dinner reservations at Hotel Tradita, a hotel built in 1697 and renovated in traditional style. It had fantastic food (we ordered Italian spaghetti, fish in pumpkin sauce and a traditional biscuit dessert) and was one of the best meals on the trip so far. The next morning we took a 7am minibus up into the mountains to Theth National Park. Theth turned out to be a slightly odd town, which had a burst of tourism over the last couple of years and is in the middle of constructing lots of guest houses and feels quite unfinished. It's in a valley surrounded by the 'Albanian Alps', which towered above on all sides. After some lunch in the town we went on a walk to find a nearby waterfall, and stopped for a beer in a cafe on the way back. We then had a local dinner at our guesthouse, and went to bed early in preparation of our 8 hour hike the next day! 

After a filling breakfast at our guest house, we set out to hike over a mountain pass from the village of Theth to a village on the other side called Valbone. This hike has become popular recently with backpackers, and we met lots of people doing the route. We had our full packs with us since we weren't coming back to Theth, which made the hike a bit more challenging. The first three hours were a steep incline up the mountain, winding through a forest for most of the way. At the top of the pass we were greeted with amazing views of the mountains and valleys below. We then hiked down the other side, which was a more gradual descent but over some quite skiddy ground. We arrived in Valbone very sweaty and dusty, and headed straight for a shower after arriving in our guesthouse. We went down for a delicious homemade local dinner, and had a nice evening chatting to a German couple who were doing the hike in the opposite direction the next day. 

After this we headed to Kosovo and North Macedonia for around 2 weeks (see separate blog posts for these countries) before entering Albania again from the south. 

After our adventures in North Macedonia, we took a bus to Berat in Albania. After a fairly long journey with a spontaneous bus change in Elbasan, we arrived in 'The city of one over one windows'. The name apparently derives from the layers upon layers of pretty white houses that spread up the steep hillside on either side of the river, although it has been commonly misnamed as 'The city of one thousand and one windows'. We found Berat to be a very pretty and charming town, with narrow cobbled streets, quaint buildings and a welcoming vibe. After exploring the old town, we went for dinner at a small family restaurant run by a man called Lili and his wife (thanks to Matilda and Oscar for the honeymoon gift!). Lili was incredibly energetic and friendly, and grouped people together to chat over his wife's delicious homemade food and his fathers homemade wine. We met a Canadian couple and two German couples who we got on well with, and after dinner we went out for some cocktails with them. 

The next day we awoke to a lovely homemade breakfast at our guest house, and had a relaxing morning. We went into town for some lunch and a coffee. That afternoon we did a walking tour of Berat with a friendly local guide, and met the Canadian couple from the night before who were also on the tour. We learnt that the two sides of Berat were split by religion previously (with Mosques on one side and Churches the other), that it was under Ottoman rule for many years, and were told a local legend involving two brothers who fought over a girl and were killed (apparently the brothers turned into two mountains while the girl became Berat castle). The castle was impressive and contained occupied houses, mosques and churches, as well as stunning views over the city. After the tour we went for dinner with the Canadian couple and had a good time chatting about life and travel. 

The next morning we took a bus from Berat to a coastal town called Himarë. We had to take two minibuses to get there, and found the timings online were very unreliable! We arrived eventually, and went down to the beach for the afternoon. Himarë was quite a quiet beach town with a long stretch of sand lined by cafes and restaurants. We had a refreshing swim in the sea, followed by ice cream and beer on the beach. We then went for dinner at a Greek restaurant overlooking the sea. Over the next couple of days we spent some time doing trip planning and sailing course theory, interspersed by swimming in the sea, ice cream on the beach and meals out at crepe and pizza restaurants. We managed to complete the assessment for our sailing course theory, which took a full day - we were quite tired afterwards and relieved to be finished! We passed with flying colours, and should hopefully be ready for our practical sailing course in 2 weeks time. 

We woke early the next morning to begin a long and convoluted journey to Greece. We asked lots of people what time the minibuses left and got some very conflicting answers! We managed to take a bus for about 2 hours to another nearby town, then had an hour and a half wait for another bus travelling to Gjirokaster, a town near the Greek border. When we arrived at around 12pm it turned out the next bus to Ioannina in Greece wasn't until 6pm, so we had an unexpected afternoon to explore Gjirokaster. It turned out to be a pretty, historic town nestled into the mountainside. We walked up the hill to the town centre and had a coffee in the open bazaar, before heading up to the fortress overlooking the town. It was very impressive and well maintained, with huge imposing walls and lots of artillery guns. We then decided to go to the cold war bunker, a creepy set of underground tunnels built in the 1970s by Albania's dictator due to his paranoia of an atomic attack from Greece. We then headed back down the hill to the bus station, and caught the bus over the border to Greece - the next country on our trip!