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Published: December 3rd 2009
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We both really wanted to spend time in Albania but after organising some volunteering in India for Febraury we made the decision that we would spend a bit more time in Greece so would wizz through.... Montenegro and Albania.
After getting the taxi to the border we luckily managed to get a ride with an Albanian guy to the first town over the border, Shkoder. You can feel the difference between Montenegro and Albania almost instantly. Shkoder is a bustling little town and despite the craziness, it felt really comfortable! The oriental and middle eastern culture is quite prevalent with our sense teased with different music and colours from the rest of Europe! We found a bus to the capital Tirane and took what ended up to be a pretty long bus ride down half of Albania. Tirane is a big capital city with lots of people and heaps of crazy cars about! Thanks to Jean being able to speak some german we found how to get another bus to Gyirokaster...unfortunately it was a night bus so we missed much of what I'm sure is the amazing country side...we could only image as we headed down the coast and traversed
skodar
the very old fortress through mountains!
We arrived after midnight but had called a guesthouse to let us know that we would be arriving. The guesthouse owners were lovely and had stayed up for us and we settled in a gorgeous 330 year old house with wood carved ceilings. We checked out the old town the next day with a beautiful old castle...another UNESCO world heritage gem! We had a very simple delicous meal on the terrace of a little restaurant in the old town and then in the afternoon wandered to the other side of the castle and found some cute small villages and cheeky village kids who could speak great english and some french too!
Continuing on a bit of our UNESCO world heritage theme we headed to Sarande the coastal town which we would use to go to Greece, and visited the nearby ancient ruins of Butrint. Butrint was a port from Hellenistic to Ottoman times and had some amazing ruins of structures including their famous mosaics which were found in many of the buildings...some still in great condition. The site had a great old ampitheatre which we relaxed and had lunch and then checked out the other amazing
skodar
ww2 bridge maybe ruins of the ancient city.
The next morning was an early morning wake up to catch the bus towards Greece!
We loved Albania and found the people heaps friendly and engaging! A really interesting country which came out of communism 1992... the change the country would have seen since then would have been huge! The one blight we found was the amount of pollution and rubbish that is found almost everywhere and anywhere! The colours of plastic that just almost line the roadways is quite disturbing in what is otherwise an amazing and beautiful country which we would have loved to explore a little bit more...but next time hey!
en francais 😊 Il y a tres tres tres longtemps dans ce pays les aigles etaient les rois et pour qu' un hommes puisse devenir un Homme il fallait qu'il dompte un aigle!!! voila ca y'est on est en albanie, quel chance de pouvoir traverser ce pays aux montagnes aussi belles que des diamants et a la mer tellement bleue qu'on s'y perd!!!
enfin bon la frontiere se passe un peu dans le chaos avec le garde qui veut faire du zele et qui cheque nos
girokaster
17 century house baggages!!! ooops benh oui pas le droit encore d'arriver en albanie avec une voiture particuliere qui n'est pas la votre!!! uhmmm ca sent le communisme!!! mais non mais non les cocos ils sont partis il y a 18 ans et croyez moi les gens labas en sont bien heureux!!! l'albanie fut avec le montenegro les pays les plus fermes du bloc est et donc les plus secrets!!! maintenant plus de secret et le capitalisme arrive a grand pas!!! on espere tous qu'ils ne vont pas gacher ce beau pays avec du beton sur les cotes et de la polution dans les rivieres!!! bon c'est deja fait pour la polution, des plastics et dechets partout!!!
Le voyage fut super de skodar a tirana!!! une ville pas comme les autres tirana!!! un sentiment general comme un peu ventiane!!! un taxi et oui un autre qui nous debrouille pour le bus et les sourires!!! et hop dans le bus pour girokastra!!!
Une belle ville protege par unesco!!! une forteresse tres balaise!!! des momes qui parle mieux anglais que les rosbif eux meme!!! un b&b dans une maison du 16s!!! pour ceux qui aime l'histoire: a 5kms de la, le roi Pyrrhus fit construire
girokaster
allah wakbar allah beautifull mosque la ville d'antigone pour sa femme antigone en 296 av!!!
De la on part pour sarande et la ville vestiges grec de butrint!!! alors ca c'est a voir et je dirais que c'est les plus beau vestiges grecs que j'ai jamais vu!!! l'amphitheatre est magnifique!!! une atmosphere tres relax et pas un touristes!!!
Et voila l'albanie c'est finie bonjour la grece!!!
En 1 phrase pour resumer l'Albanie: 1 pays fabuleux avec des gens fabuleux= avoir absolument!!! 😊
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