Our somewhat brief stop in Shköder, Albania for lunch was for all intents and purposes our last look at that country. I realized then that I liked the more interesting city of Tirana much better than the more modern Shköder though Shköder obviously does have its own attractions. From Shköder we were headed to Montenegro, another new country for us, for the next two nights; we had to make a border crossing out of Albania, then another into Montenegro all of which turned into a lengthy process considering we were not allowed to leave the bus. This would happen again and again as we went from country to country. At each border crossing, all passports had to be collected and turned over to border security/passport control, stamped and returned to us in contrast to crossing borders ... read more

In May, 2017, we spent 2 weeks with a tour group in the Balkan countries which lie along the magnificent, deep blue Adriatic Sea -- Albania, Montenegro, a tiny bit of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. Since other destinations ranked higher on my wish list, I'm not quite sure why we decided to do this particular trip. However, now reflecting back on our experiences and observations, I can say enthusiastically that I'm extremely glad we chose to do this Balkan trip! It was particularly interesting to visit these countries now as they still might be considered democratic government fledglings. Most of these countries have become sovereign nations relatively recently and one, Albania, in my opinion, is still in the process of emerging from being ruled under a long-term dictatorship. Taken as a whole the trip was terrific, ... read more