Oh, Albania...

By Where's Herr Gruber?

September 12^th, 2021

Long time no see friends!

After some mobile device time out, and some time out from traveling: we are back online and back on the road! Freshly vaccinated, ready to take on the world again. Well, so far Romania and Bulgaria, and crossing soon to Turkey.

Since we last posted an update, long story short: we went from Greece to Albania, and made our way up north via Montenegro and Croatia. Spend some time with our family and friends, fixed up Herr Gruber a tiny bit (fancy new starter) and got our shots. Let’s pick it up again where we left you hanging: Albania.

Albania

We’ve heard some really good stories about Albania from people we met on the road. And it was all true. The country and it’s people really surprised us. Beautiful bays, wild nature, friendly people and delicious bureks. And a very interesting history and present, everywhere you go in the country go you sense that Albania is quite upcoming. Next to that it’s wild camping paradise! So let us take you on this long overdue photo journey of our favorite places.

Syri i Kaltër

After passing the border we directly drove to this gem, Syri i Kaltër. Meaning the Blue Eye Spring. It’s a natural phenomenon, you can see the source of the crystal blue river for more than fifty meters deep. Quite touristy, but nevertheless beautiful. Although in Covid-times we can often enjoy these things by ourselves or with little people in sight. Jenny also liked to dip her toes in and we saw this cute postbox for love letters.

Butrint

One of Albania’s prettiest ancient sites and easily the highlight of our time in Albania. Although we believe that might be true for at least a couple of more things we saw or did in this country… Greeks have settled here, later on it was a very wealthy colony of the Romans. Even the Venetians bought it at some point, although it was sadly already in decline for centuries by that time. Jenny could come, so we wandered around the ruins, some of which were restored, read about the history and listen to a school class performing songs in the old amphitheater.

Borsch Beach

We met Geert, Valerie, Estelle and Paul, a cool Belgian travel family (@dancing.denise) and they told us that Borsch Beach was pretty beautiful and we could cross a river to get to a cool camping spot on the beach. So off we went. We found it, crossed the river and stood there for a couple of nights on white stones in between pink flowers. Pretty idyllic, we can imagine the dog also enjoyed it, considering she kept getting frozen octopus from the fishermen at the beach. But we didn’t take pics of this idyll, facepalm… Instead enjoy these pictures of the beach from above. Plus a photo of Simon looking like a beach boy with long curly hair. Plus a photo of an ad from the government to not throw your trash just randomly on the streets. Unfortunately Albania is pretty full of trash everywhere. So we cleaned up our beach spot a bit and naively hope every little action helps.

The Attack of the Cows

After soaking up the sun in the Albania Riviera we drove north to Vlöre. We did the quest for dogfood (succeeded), we found an amazing sleeping spot at the Vjosë-Nartë Delta. And got attacked by cows… At first there was peace, a time in which we all happily co-existed on this beautiful piece of land. The cows, the goats, Herr Gruber, Jenny, some other off-road people with roof tents, an Albanian couple doing nasty business in the ocean and us. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere the mood changed, the cows came closer, Jenny came inside, we closed the doors and the cows started rubbing against the van! Which was pretty scary and kind of funny, and after a while it just stopped, the ladies walked on and the peace returned. Herr Gruber was left unscarred and we were left with a hilarious new memory of our time in Albania. We were the guests there after all, gotta respect the locals.

Berat

Called the city of a thousand windows, quite magical with it’s Ottoman charm, the fortress and its minarets. For a bit it felt like we were walking through the medinas in the middle east. We also had a great dinner there, at Lili's Homemade Restaurant. Where Lili welcomed us with open arms, homemade wine and yummy food! Both Berat and Lili’s restaurant were magical and we would recommend anyone to visit!

Tirana

The capital of Albania, Tirana, surprised us the most. Such a cool city, with a beautiful restored inner city center, pedestrian zone, no cars allowed. People enjoying themselves in the city’s cool restaurants and bars. Fancy people strolling along the boulevard and families picnicking in the parks. Everywhere new buildings were being build, mostly skyscrapers. Very had to imagine that before 1992 Albania was cut off from the world, poor and living under a dictatorship. Tirana just breaths new young positive energy and we liked it very much.

We also did a tour with Tirana Free Tour, a concept where you tip your local guide, and this was key to learning more about the history of the city and the country.

Why doesn't the Netherlands have these things?!

We stayed at a really nice camping as well, in the hills above Tirana, with such a friendly family. The two sons have turned part of their family’s farmland into a camping and it was so nice to relax there for a couple of days. They did such a good job and when we told them we would give them five stars on Google he said: no, no please don’t. My uncle also has a camping but he get’s bad reviews and we only get the five stars and all the campers. So please don’t put it online, it is enough that you told me now! Family above business in Albania so it seems! Whilst there Simon also fixed our ignition key lock, which is nice, we don’t have to start the camper with a screwdriver anymore. To celebrate he got himself a ticket to Bunk’Art1, a massive cold war bunker build for Albania’s political elite in the 70’s. Sounds fun right, wandering through Hoxha’s (the dictator) underground home? Emy stayed with the dog above ground…

The Bunkers of Albania

Speaking of bunkers, Albania has thousands of them! Depending on who you ask, it could be between 173.000 to 750.000. Build on street corners, in cities, in villages, in the mountains and by the sea. We even saw a submarine bunker, an open gap in the mountain next to the shore where a submarine could just float in. Simon loved that of course. These things were all build in the 70s and 80s by the regime of Oxha. Who was kind of paranoid… You think? When you have a fight with just about any other country in the world, China, Russia, and your direct neighbors, we could imagine your not feeling great. But building hunderds of thousands of bunkers might be going a bit overboard with it. Now the bunkers reminds the Albanians of a rough past. But Albanians are resourceful and have turned them into beach bars, cafes and museums. Some of them are just painted over by bright colors and smiley faces. The two brothers at the camping we stayed at were even turning them in to guest rooms, with a bunker theme though. They had eight bunkers on their farmland, all of them abandoned. Lots of guests have told them it would be a cool thing to sleep in one of them, and entrepreneurial as they are, they took on the challenge.

Lake Shkodra

Since Sven, a friend of Simon, booked his flights to Croatia to visit us, we needed to go north again. Slowly though! We stopped at the Albania side of Lake Shkodra, had some relaxing days there. Went with Herr Gruber to a lavanz (car wash), where two guys washed it for €4,50 and it was the cleanest it has ever been and it will probably ever be. Did an oil change. Found out we had too much oil, sucked some oil out. Turns out Emy can also be an engineer. Dipped in the lake and had a very nice dinner with some traditional Albanian music. After that we passed the border to Montenegro. All those stories about Albania were true, it was so cool and we enjoyed it a lot.

We actually entered Turkey a couple of days ago. But up next on this blog is Montenegro and Croatia! Maybe even Romania, since we loved that as well! Sorry for the long overdue update, we have been just enjoying time of and being offline. Sometimes quite necessary as well.