Apparently a post was added to this, but later deleted. I suspect it was a spam bot.
Nonetheless, I wanted to share that I actually did this journey in 2008. Here is what I did:
All transport was arranged either the day before or the day of, during the month of August. It is a very hot time of year, but if you can take the heat it is worth it. Watch out for heat stroke and heat cramps. Take plenty of water and electrolytes.
Spent a month in Munich before going south. Lovely city, worth spending time, but I only recommend it if you are a foody, beery, or are happy to travel and walk a lot.
Munich->Venice by Train
Spent two days in Venice, well worth it. Arranged the hotel room over three months ahead of time, highly recommended.
Venice->Ljubljana by Train - Warning, train arrives at 1:00 AM in Ljubljana
Ljubljana - Spent a day here, well worth it. Arts and farmers market really cool. Old castle/fort on the hill was enjoyable. Could easily spend a couple days here. Warn hotel before training it, they will make arrangements for late night arrival as they are used to it, but you must warn them.
Ljubljana->Zagreb by Train - You will get checked at the border crossing between Croatia and Slovenia.
Zagreb - Warning, old city center area is cute .. but the main sites can be seen in under six hours. Be sure to get there on the right day of week, it can be completely shut down. The Museum of Naive Art is PHENOMENAL and well worth it. The chance to drink Orojovac (local brandy liqueur) at a local cafe is well worth it. Spending a night here would possibly be pointless.
Zagreb->Split by Train - Overnight train, arrives early in the morning, leaves around 11:00 PM. Get a sleeper car, it is worth it.
Split - Spent the day here. Could easily spend two or three days. Locals are at all points of entry willing to shill out their rooms. Go with your gut on whether you trust them or not, it is at your own risk. However, it can be a rewarding experience. I only spent one day here, slightly regret it, will be going back. It is exceedingly hot because of all the marble in the old city. The streets are slick if it rains, be careful. The streets are slick even if they aren't wet, wear decent shoes - although, I did wear birkenstocks, but I do have good footing .. and I still slipped a few times. Had lunch in the center of the old city at a cafe in a promenade area near the old tower and church, it was a great experience.
Split->Dubrovnik by Bus - The ride is semi-lengthy, but pretty. Well worth it. Watch local politics, you do pass through an interesting zone that has had problems with war in the past. However, it has been quite peaceful as of late.
Dubrovnik - Amazing city, spent three days there. Stayed with a local who picked us up at the train station, great guy. When he had another reservation coming in, he arranged for us to stay with a neighbor. Well worth it. Spend a few days, go to the island, hang out, do your laundry, explore the old city, swim on the Dalmation Coast. Absolutely gorgeous. Warning: Coast is rocky, sharp, not pebbles everywhere, I did cut myself getting in and out of the water once.
Dubrovnik->Bar by Bus - Apparently not a common route for English speaking tourists. Very doable. When you get into Dubrovnik ask about the bus to Bar. Make arrangements immediately. Bus station is on the outskirts of town to the North. Takes several hours. Stopped in Budva for lunch at a cute cafe.
Note: I did not stop or stay in Montenegro. We had planned to originally, but the coasts were lined with an endless sea of lounge chairs, you could not see the beach for them. Apparently it is the only place where people form Serbia can get to the sea. I have talked to people who say it is a great place to stay, but I did not.
Bar->Albanian Border, Destination Shkoder by Cab - There is no direct way to make this trip. Take a cab. It will drive you to the border between Montenegro and Albania. Cost was 15 Euros, you can negotiate up or down. He picked his son up for some reason, was friendly, spoke a reasonable amount of English.
Note: Crossed border on foot. Line of cars was almost a mile long. Cab drove us on the edge of the roadway most of the way, we walked the last half mile. The border guards thought it was funny. Charged a 20 Euro entry fee (probably a standard bribe, I have never been told if it was truly necessary or not). Walked down the road after crossing the border. It is apparently approximately 15km to Shkoder. Look for a cab or hitch hike (frowned upon in Albania in my experience, but doable). I found a cab after a half mile walk.
Albanian Border->Shkoder by Cab - Way too friendly cabby and third passenger. Paid 10 Euro to town. Cabby tried to hook us up with his "brother" or some place to stay. We asked where the nice hotels were. Cabby wanted an additional 20 Euros to drive us to a nice hotel from edge of city. We refused and walked it.
Note: Shkoder (Shkodra) recently flooded! At the time of our visit the streets were littered with trash. Wear close toed shoes for your own safety. Do not drink the water or eat fresh fruit (god it looked tempting, but everyone warned us against it). Buy bottled water.
Lake Shkodra is beautiful! You probably shouldn't swim in it, but locals were and said you could swim at certain points. We did not. We only stayed one night, kind of wish we stayed two days. We did not stay at the "European Hotel" which is 10 floors, super-fancy hotel for about 80 Euros a night (hah!). We walked 3 blocks down, as recommended by the front desk lady who was super friendly, and stayed the night at a respectable and peaceful hotel for 15 Euros. The room was huge, the bed was rock hard but nice, it had air conditioning, it was well worth it.
Locals in Albania WILL STARE AT YOU. Do not be afraid. Look them in the eye, smile, nod, engage them in conversation if it feels appropriate. It appears to be custom. It was slightly unsettling at first, but after I talked with a few and chatted it came across that it was perfectly normal, not menacing. It was a great experience.
Almost no women were on the streets while we were there. My wife felt a bit odd. Restaurants are in short supply, almost all establishments were for drinking alcohol and had no food. We shopped at local stores for food. Dinner at the restaurant under the hotel was lame.
From the hotel you can walk to the Fort, it is really neat, ask directions .. we went the long way. Remember to take small change with you to get in.
IF you use the ATM, do not make the same mistake as me. GET THE SMALLEST NOTES POSSIBLE. If you have to, do multiple withdrawals for the smallest amount the machine will give you. I picked the second amount, received one bill ... and nobody could cash it "it was too big". On the other hand, I got a LOT of free services in Albania because of it. I did refuse to pay in Euros, they will consistently charge you 10x the real price if you pay Euros, but will charge you actual price if you pay in the local currency. Do not try to exchange the note at the bank, a security guard will point a large gun at you and chase you off - foreigners are not allowed into the banks ..... At least, that was my experience.
Shokdra->Tirana(Tirane) by Furgon! - Furgon's are little white vans. They are located at the spokes of cities. They have a sign in the window telling you the final destination. You get in and wait until the van is full with other people. It could be 10 minutes, it could be hours. They are available starting at a certain time of day and leave semi-regularly. Get there early, ask the locals if they know when they leave. The one from Shkodre->Tirana was located in the center of the city near the big statue (cool statue). When you get to your destination - ours was Tirana - you apparently pay what you can, we paid about 2000 Leke (about 15 EUR). Driver was nice, it was a neat ride.
Tirana->Gjorkaster by Bus - We took a cab to the bus station. It cost us 500 Leke. The driver spoke very little English, mostly Italian. My wife translated, I supplemented with German from time to time. It was an interesting conversation. It was a lot of fun. He drove us around the city and showed us the painted buildings (cool), and showed off some of the local sites. We got to the bus station, he figured out when our bus was leaving - you will want someone to do this for you, we tipped him and he was off. We hung out at the cafe. NOTE: ANY TYPE OF GAMING, ESPECIALLY THINGS THAT LOOK LIKE CARDS ARE NOT ALLOWED! We had played a friendly game of Fluxx for about 30 minutes, while waiting for our mystery lunch (some type of noodle thing super plain flavor .. I think it was boiled noodles with salt and butter), and had the waitress come over with a police officer to tell us to stop playing cards ... They also asked us what we were betting, what type of gambling we were doing, etc. When we tried to explain it was not a gambling game and was just for fun, they did not understand. We were told to not play anymore games while in Albania. After about four hours (it was supposed to be 1 hour), we caught our bus to Gjorkaster. It was a long ride, it stops at a random restaurant in the middle. The roads are often barely one lane. It is seriously weird. Nobody spoke any English, some spoke Italian, it was odd. We arrived in Gjorkaster late at night. We walked up the street, the city was definitely bustling (Albania seems to stay open until about 1 AM). We grabbed dinner and stayed in a hotel for 10 EUR for the night. There were more choices for dinner than in Shkodre. This was the first time someone actually explained the money to us ... it is confusing (100 notes = old 1000 notes; everyone quotes old prices to you not new; new bills are fairly rare, and are for amounts that nobody has change for)
Options - at this point in Tirane you could go to down the coast instead. I wanted to, my wife was worried about how much time we had to get down to Greece and through Greece. We ended up not doing it. I wish we had spent another day or two in Albania.
Gjorkaster - has an interesting old fort. We did not visit it, we did not realize it was there until leaving the city, it is in none of the guide books that we found.
Gjorkaster->Greece Border by Furgon. Straight forward trip, went down to the same spoke of the city we came in on. It took about two hours, the furgon wandered around a lot.
To Greece on Foot from Albania. The most miserable border crossing we experienced. There was a "DVD" stand just before we went through. I saw some poor idiot buy a stack of illegal DVDs, who got to Greek Customs, which took the DVDs ... I got the impression this is the game and that the DVDs are given back to the person selling them. Our bags were thoroughly searched. You are supposed to give up ALL LEKE you received while in the country ... nobody spoke English, so we didn't find this out (and thus, illegally left the country with its currency, oops). We were stamped out... and asked by Greece if someone was meeting us. We told them we wanted a bus or cab. We walked down, found a bus, got onto the bus. It worked quite well. Again, we were able to skip the long lines the cars were waiting in because we walked. It saved us hours.
Albania Border->Ionnina by Bus - Took the bus, it cost us 20 Euros. Rather annoying ride for some reason.
We did nothing in Ionnina, we didn't know much about it. However, it looks like a place that would be worth spending more time some day. Our goal at this point was to get to Meteora and spend the night.
Ionnina->Meteora by Bus - Took a few hours, interesting road work in the area. Nice trip, beautiful landscape. Spending the night in Meteora was amazing. We walked around Meteora - apparently nobody does this. We had fun hiking the region. Give yourself plenty of time to do this and make sure you are in good shape. There is a local guidebook of paths you can hike ... they are overgrown and unmarked. People will look at you quite oddly when you tell them you hiked it, they cannot believe it. Apparently Greeks do not walk (at least in Meteora according to the locals). On the other hand, we saw a LOT of really cute little turtles and other wildlife that nobody else apparently every sees. It was a lot of fun. We also saw some of the now closed Monasteries, which was fun. Buy the pomegranate cognac at a monastery, you will not regret it.
Meteora->Delphi by Bus - from Meteora you can go straight to Athens. We had an extra day, because we rushed through Albania, so we went to Athens. Supposedly this is a direct trip. It is not, they lie. It goes halfway, stops at a place for several hours, then goes on. Then you stop at another place near Delphi for several hours - you can see into the valley beneath it - and finally goes to Delphi. Instead of being a fairly short 4 hour bus ride, it takes at least 8 hours. Locals know this is what actually happens, but nobody ever tells you about this until you've done it and they go "Oh, yes, that always happens."
Delphi - we popped in, got a hotel once we arrived. It was cool. Spent a day wandering around, checking out the ruins. Stayed two nights, left the next morning.
Delphi->Athens by Bus - easy, quick bus trip.
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And there you go. Very doable, very fun, very interesting. Prepare to have a great time in Albania and get to know the locals. I have many regrets about what I did not do in Albania, top of those is spend more time there. It is a country worth exploring!
Best,
- M
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