Blogs from Tirana, West, Albania, Europe
March 12th 2012
I have been home since August. I should have written this blog some time ago, but I never felt I could do it or I should say, do it right. Fifty months on the road were coming to an end. I knew I had only two months to go and I couldn't see myself spending three hours on a computer. I really wanted to do everything I dreamed of doing before I left. You know, before you leave for the first time, you are making a list of all you want to do and obviously most of it remain undone by the end of your trip. I was at one of those dead ends. For the first time in four years I was feeling the time passing by. I read that time was the last enemy. ... read more
March 10th 2012
Monday 5th March we attempted to hike Mt Dajti.. I say attempted because firstly the cable car to the National Park near the top where we wanted to hike was closed (turns out Monday is not a good day for things being open including Museums, Galleries and cable cars!) and secondly because we got 30 minutes into the mountain (planning to hike the whole way) when it started to thunderstorm and we were in landslide territory, with parts of the path already dropped away, so we decided to turn back. Nevertheless, we saw out first bunker tucked away in the hillside. During the Communist era, which began in 1941, there were 700,000 of these concrete bunkers built by Hoxha to protect the country from invasion. Turns out they pop up everywhere!! Our friend Zhujeta from the ... read more
March 8th 2012
Our travel through the Balkans began in early January, however it is only Tirana that has forced me to start a blog. Perhaps it's the crazy turn of events that continue to fall upon us daily, or the impulse to share information from such an ill-informed country with others that has now convinced me to start a blog. And so here we are. Albania. We arrived in Tirana today with little fuss (yes, unusual for us). It's our fifth day in Albania and fourth destination on the map. We are over the initial culture shock, the realization that bus stations and tourist informations don't exit and we have mastered the Albanian thank you, 'faleminderit' with fluency. Here's to the beginning of an Albanian adventure!... read more
March 4th 2012
Well…. Greetings from Tirana, Albania! We have been here since Saturday 3rd March. We planned to stay only 3 nights and see what the weather in the Balkans region allowed us to do in terms of hiking and outdoors stuff…. We haven’t been able to do any so far, but we have decided now to base ourselves here for 2 weeks! We really like it here. There’s a great market and lots of history! Saturday night we had our first Albanian meal. The staple foods here include lamb, chicken, yoghurt, cheese and all parts of the animals – kidneys, livers, even the heads! I think Nick had some sort of liver in cheese that night and a bowl of beans cooked in some animal sauce. For me, it was thank goodness for garden salad!! Sunday 4th ... read more
January 2nd 2012
Tirana Albania's capital, we arrived at Tirana at 3am as this was the only time we could arrive, with the only bus scheduled from Skopje to Tirana being scheduled with an arrival time of 3am - while I couldn't figure out the logic of it at the time, I imagine it has something to do with the border crossing. Once there, we set off to find our next hostel, but as it was 3am, we didn't have much luck, with the first hostel we had jotted down shut for the night and the second one unfindable. With a lot of what seemed like shady characters cruising around in very expensive cars, stray dogs menacing the streets and rough looking people about, our nerve held out until the point where a car pulled up next to us ... read more
Chapter 4 - DAY 12 - Dubrovnic to Tirana (Albania)
Published: September 20th 2011Europe » Albania » West » Tirana
September 18th 2011
IT’S A-DAY!!! On the road again, this time it’s really into the unknown as we head for Albania – Its A- DAY (the name adopted by the bus for the day we really head into the unknown. We had an early breakfast at the resort so we could make an early start and hopefully get to the border at a time when there’s not too much traffic. We were advised to take our own lunch as options were very limited on the way. MONTENEGRO We left Croatia and entered Montenegro, previously part of Serbia it had broken away about seven years ago. The whole population of the country is only 700,000 so it seems a bit odd. Apparently it has become the playground for the super rich Russians. It is on the beautiful Adriatic coast and ... read more
September 1st 2011
we were back on the coach today headed toTirana, Albania, it was an interesting drive as the roads were not to well maintained and interesting sights on the way. There was lots of rubbish on the roadside, lots and lots of carwashs and not quite completed buildings. When we got to tirana we got taken on a driving tour which took us past all the brightly coloured buildings with designs. After the drive tour we got taken to our accomidation for the night which was an apartment style with a kitchen, lounge, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. We were very spoilt here with the accomidation, and the beds were amazing, I got to catch up on a lot of sleep.... read more
August 31st 2011
So from Mykonos it was an over-nighter in Preveza, and by accident we got a hotel upgrade so we were staying in immaculate accommodation. This was a quiet night for everyone though, a bit of a wind down after the craziness of Mykonos. The next day took us on to Albania. As the poorest country in Europe, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect and honestly my first impression was wow! The rolling mountains were so colossal and being surrounded by these towering giants is actually kind of humbling. The whole country is practically in a valley, it’s quite amazing. As far as civilisation goes it’s not real crash hot ha ha :-). The outer areas are 3rd world with run down houses and derelict buildings, and apparently its common practice to only half finish building ... read more
August 25th 2011
This morning we were up at 6.15am so we could clean our boat before leaving (we had to have inspections)... problem was we were such a great team that we had the boat finished and emptied in 45 minutes... I stood guard of our luggage because our friends (the 'town dogs') may have tried to steal something! After packing up we drove to Tirana, Albania. It is crazy to come from such a pleasant, rich place (Plataria, Greece) to this incredibly poor country. We stopped at a shopping mall and I was not feeling so well. Steve told me I would be ok and I wondered if I had just been sitting funny on the bus... 5 minutes after getting back on the bus I was vomitting into a rubbish bag... not very nice but it ... read more
August 7th 2011
I was joined by my chums from Skopje on the bus to Tirana but their hostel was full so ended up in the Albania Hostel, which was a most agreeable place. On the taxi ride to the hostel the driver advised that you don't have to wear seat belts in taxis only in Private cars, I did ponder explaining the merits of wearing seat belts (especially in Albania, as the drivers are crazy) but decided against it and resumed the conversation about Manchester United:-). The hostel had a bar and a puppy, what more could you want:-) The next day I had a walk round the centre of Tirana but like Skopje, it was also a building site, I think there has been an influx of money into the Balkans countries and they seem to be ... read more
