Day 39 Tirana Albania to Kotor Montenegro

The bus to Kotor was leaving at 8am but luckily it was only a five minute walk from our accommodation. The bus backtracked via Shkoder where we had been yesterday, and collected an English couple we had met on the ferry a couple of days before. The border crossings were taken care of by the driver and the police coming onto the bus, it was very easy for us, they were only interested in the Albanians, questioning them on how much money they had. Our bus driver spent a lot of time on his mobile even though there was a sign on his window of a mobile with a red cross through it.

When we eventually reached Kotor it was an easy walk from the bus station through the arched gate into the walled old town, then up a few stone steps to our cute Airbnb apartment. The apartment was on two levels and very authentic with the old stone work right down to the musty smell, we are happy that we have a washing machine, which was an important filter for us.

Kotor is amazing, its all old stone, cobbled roads, walls, shops, accommodation and no motorised traffic inside the city walls. We turned a corner and found ourselves in a square with hordes of tour groups, and a cruise ship could be seen out the gate. Just as we were despairing at the crowds there was a mass exodus and by about 4pm there was only a sprinkling of people left. 

We found a bar on one of the many squares but once again experienced the total lack of interest in us or serving us that has dogged us throughout most of this trip, don't think we will ever complain about service in Melbourne again. We moved on pretty fast and purely by accident came across a tiny little hole in the wall, we were served cheap drinks by an old man on a cute street, this was more our style.

Day 38 Skhoder to Tirana

Today we had to return our small and very dirty car back to the car rental in Tirana. We have certainly had our money's worth out of our tiny, gutless car and now we understand why we were told we had to get it washed before we returned it! There is always a huge relief when you once again safely hand back a hire car. The freedom of having a car is such a plus but then taking a bus relieves you of all the stresses and responsibilities.

We dropped off our luggage at our accommodation not far from the bus station, returned the car to the rental company then wandered around the city for the afternoon, visiting one of the bunker museums as well as the revolving restaurant, at least it wasn't pouring rain like our last time in Tirana.

On our final night in Albania we were staying close to some really nice outdoor cafes and bars however the issue with these is that they don't serve any meals. They look like they are  restaurants but they are drinks only and as we couldn't find anywhere to eat we ended up eating noodles in our rooms with a tiny plastic spoon K had saved from an ice cream shop.

As we leave this part of the world we have a few thoughts, we love the huge amounts of potted colour everywhere, not sure whether this is just a spring thing but the cafes, restaurants, shops and even petrol stations are adorned with masses of colourful plants.

We have become more comfortable crossing the road at pedestrian crossings even though they don't seem to hold any significance for drivers. Kosovo was the opposite of Australia, when you want to cross at a zebra crossing at home you wait for the cars to stop and then step out, in Kosovo you step onto the crossing and then the approaching cars stop (hopefully), a much scarier proposition.

Day 37 Bajram Curri to Shkoder

From Bajram Curri we drove to Fierze and spent the morning hanging around waiting for the ferry that would take us along Lake Komani which is meant to be one of the great river boat rides of the world and the best in Europe. The ferry charges for vehicles at rate of €5 per square meter so M googled our car and made some calculations. 

Our little car was squashed on to the ferry and and we headed off for the 2 plus hour trip down what appeared to be a river but is actually a lake caused by damming. The weather was perfect and the scenery stunning, it was great to be enjoying some natural beauty after 5 weeks of visiting mostly man made sights. There aren't any pre-arranged stops on the way, if someone wants to get on they just wait at the side of the river and flag the boat down, the few small dwellings we saw appeared to be very basic.

All too soon we arrived at the dam at Komani and drove the very poor road to Skhoder for the night. As beautiful as the countryside is the area is spoilt by the amount of rubbish lying around everywhere, it appears as if the locals have got a bit of beautifying that they need to do if they want to attract more tourists.

It also seems that the local hotel and restaurant owners might have taken advice from the city of Skopje as there were a lot of not very good or appropriate statues and kitsch copied castles around the place, and of course we ended up eating at one such restaurant.

Day 36 Pristina Kosovo to Bajram Curri Albania

The free walking tour of Pristina didn't start until 11am which was a bit late for us, plus the guide we had yesterday had put us off walking tours for a while so we found a self guided tour online and spent an hour or so checking out the major sites of Pristina. This included the new Mother Teresa church, and the library which has made the list of the 30 ugliest buildings in the world. 

Next stop after Pristina was Prizen, this time the major highway was new and in wonderful shape which was a pleasant surprise after the last few days of driving.

Prizen's old town is set delightfully on the river with lots of cute restaurants and we met up with some English guys that we had met on the walking tour in Skopje. 

We then drove onto Gjakova for a quick stop, then crossed the border back into Albania before reaching our final stop for the night at the very Indian sounding Bajram Curri. This area of Albania is high in the mountains with snow on the peaks and and an aquamarine river.

Day 35 Skopje Macedonia to Pristina Kosovo

We joined a morning walking tour of Skopje which took in Mother Teresa's house and the chapel built in her honour.

We were also told by our guide that our view from the previous evening in relation to the statues and fountains was wrong. All the city adornment we had admired were not glorious at all but very recent additions in the last few years and disliked by the locals who think it makes their city look like Las Vegas, how wrong could we be!

We had been told by someone on the walking tour in Skopje that the border to Kosovo was closed but we couldn't find any info online so we were quite pleased when we sailed though the border easily into Kosovo. However just a little way past the border was a sign that said the road to Pristina was closed, and that we should use an alternative route. However as we saw vehicles on the road we thought we needed to take we followed them, and started down a very poor road that was under heavy construction but still (barely) driveable. 

We followed the other vehicles on what is possibly the worst road we have ever been on (yes we know we say that a lot). Our tiny car was not taking this bush track well and after passing some locals who seemed to be indicating by their waving and signals that we were going the wrong way we turned around and headed back to the border - now we understood, it wasn't the border that was closed but the road on the other side. We tried another road and were quickly rewarded with hand written signs to Pristina. 

It wasn't the easiest drive but we finally arrived in Pristina and went for a short walk around the area we were staying in, just off the main promenade.

Day 34 Ohrid to Skopje

We were up early for breakfast on the edge of the lake before the town got too busy, and when that was done we drove around the edge of massive Lake Ohrid to the Bay of Bones. 

This was really interesting as in this spot the remains of a stone age village had been found at the bottom of the lake. The village was now reconstructed on a similar platform over the lake. The huts were made of sticks and dry mud and reminiscent of huts we had seen in many parts of Africa. All had a small clay fire for cooking and heating and the sleeping areas had animal skins on top of straw, some were bear skins with heads and paws still attached.

Our next stop was the Monastery of Saint Naum which is beautifully kept with lovely gardens and cafes on the water, luckily we left just as a bulging boatload of people were arriving from Ohrid.

We drove on from there to our lunch stop of Bitola which was surprisingly busy, there was a wide mall with restaurants and cafes full of people facing the street and people watching. We had read that they don't have a lot of money so getting dressed up and walking the main streets is the way they spend their leisure time.

Our base for the night was Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. The streets were very quiet, as was the square and bazaar. We thought the squares, open spaces and river were wonderful with so many huge statues of so many interesting people and fountains and bridges and buildings and even a couple of pirate looking boats that were bars/restaurants.

Day 33 Berat Albania to Ohrid Macedonia

Our room in Berat was lovely, we had a pillow top bed which made such a welcome change from the hard beds of Greece and a big veranda overlooking the river. As breakfast was included with our room we went back to the terrace when we woke up and were given the largest breakfast you could imagine. At one stage we took a photo thinking that was all of it, only for more food to arrive at our table. There were omelettes, sausages, bread, toast, tomatoes, cucumber, various cheeses and more and M is always pretty happy when he is served cake for breakfast. Our lovely room and breakfast cost only 30 euros (about $48).

After taking a walk across the river after breakfast we took to the rough Albanian roads again, driving through the mountains to the Macedonian border. Albania seems to be under construction, there are buildings and roads being worked on everywhere. The majority of the cars we have seen on the roads are either Mercedes or VWs, there aren't many other makes on the road.

We passed some stalls of colourful artificial flowers and just around the corner were the brightest and most colourful cemeteries we had ever seen, it seemed as if every tombstone was decorated with the artificial flowers.

At one point we passed a convoy of black cars led by a police car and other cars with flashing lights, it looks like someone important was coming through and making sure everyone knew he was on his way.

We knew we needed to buy a Green Card on the Albanian side to allow us to take the car into the other countries and just before the border we found a roadside stand. We had been told the Green Card would be €30 but for some reason we were charged €40. We drove onto the border to find there were many places to buy the card, so perhaps we could have got it cheaper.

The border crossing was uneventful and we hoped the road would improve on the Macedonian side. It certainly seemed that there were more patches as we drove through to Ohrid.

We knew Orhid was on Lake Orhid and we expected some sleepy lakeside village, instead we found ourselves in a town with a mass of tourists and narrow cobbled streets. Finding where we were staying, where to park the car and someone who spoke English to help us through all this was quite a challenge but eventually we were sorted.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the lake area with the other tourists but feeling like we were the only English speaking tourists in town. We couldn't really work out where the other tourists were from, were they just other Macedonians? We tried to buy a Macedonian sim but couldn't find one anywhere, so maybe we were the only foreigners.

Dinner was a little strange as every table was served a bowl of what appeared to be tomato sauce and people used a spoon to smear it over their pizza, spaghetti carbonara or whatever they were eating.

Day 32 Tirana to Berat

We had decided for the next part of our trip to rent a car to travel through some of the Balkan countries, though we had heard that the roads in Albania weren't great and Tirana especially would be difficult. We did find that in Tirana that many streets had changed names, drivers don't follow rules and there are a lot of motor bikes, bicycles and pedestrians thrown into the mix.

We had plugged the coastal city of Durres into the GPS so we headed off, it wasn't long before we were heading down a narrow dead end alley, the locals did try to warn us with gesturing and raised voices but of course we didn't understand them, we eventually could go no further and had to reverse out. We decided to ignore the GPS from here on in when it decided to send us down narrow streets.

We made it to Durres and played the same fun and games with the GPS, the maps are so out of date that many roundabouts and corners were no longer there. We passed large blocks of apartments painted in different coloured polka dots - who thought that was a good idea? We eventually found the ancient town wall and amphitheater, a quick stop to have a look, then on to Vlore on the coast for lunch.

The town roads were very rough, patched and chaotic, the only rule that seemed to apply was every man for himself, in some cases they didn't even bother painting lane markings on the roads.

Vlore has a new, modern, wide promenade with lots of restaurants and is alongside a nice looking beach. All the restaurants seemed to have the same menu, seafood and pizza, so we chose a pizza restaurant for lunch, only to be told there wasn't any pizza. So instead we shared a rubbery chicken fillet then drove inland to Berat.

The road was probably the worst sealed road we have ever been on with massive holes, disappearing sections or no road at all. Fortunately Berat, known as the town of 1000 windows, made up for the difficult drive.

Berat is a lovely town divided by the river, our hotel was built into the cliff face and was so authentic that huge pieces of the rock cliff face protrude through the walls in reception.

We went for a walk across the river and along the promenade but there was a bit of evening rain so we took shelter at a cafe on the promenade. M then found a very efficient and meticulous barber and received a very good hair cut for the princely sum of about $2.50. When the rain stopped we went back to our hotel with its terrace restaurant overlooking the town and had a nice meal of roast lamb.

Day 31 Roda, Corfu to Tirana, Albania

We caught the 9am ferry from Corfu Port and we understood why they didn't run all day, there was only us and two other tourists on the boat, plus about half a dozen Albanians.

At the port in Saranade we caught a taxi to the bus station where we purchased tickets to the Albanian capital of Tirana on the 10.30am furgon (mini bus). That gave us just enough time to go to the bank and get some of the local currency (lek), a sim card and a packet of chips for the five and a half hour trip.

We arrived into Tirana and checked into our room. We had decided to join the 6pm walking tour and though it had been raining it didn't look too bad so we went to the square to meet the group. Incredibly M met someone in the group who he used to work with, an amazing coincidence as Albania isn't on the tourist trail and there were only a dozen of us on the tour.

The tour was really interesting with the guide telling stories of living under communism until 1991, we were taken to see underground bunkers, and heard about the government propaganda that told the locals that the US wanted to invade because Albania was the best country on earth. That has changed of course, now they even have a street named after George Bush.

We also went to a Catholic church which had a statue of Mother Teresa out the front, Mother Teresa was born in Macedonia to Albanian parents so both countries like to claim her as their own.

Our guide also told us about the new Prime Minister who turns up to international meetings in a black suit and white runners, apparently he is an eccentric artist and is working hard to fight corruption and improve the country.

Unfortunately after not too long on the tour there was a loud clap of thunder and a few moments after that we were all drenched, the tour was unfortunately rushed through at the end, and we hurried back to our hotel to get changed before heading out again for dinner.

Day 30 Roda, Corfu

Corfu is very English. there are English people working in the shops and restaurants and we realise we haven't heard a "kalimera" since we arrived. This is quite disappointing as what's the point of traveling to another country if it has been homogenised to feel like home, where is the cultural element? Luckily its not as bad as somewhere like Benidorm in Spain but scarily we did see someone wearing a Benidorm t-shirt.

Along with the missing kalimeras is bread missing at the beginning of dinner, water brought to the table without asking, free desserts and shots of alcohol from cute miniature bottles that we'd experienced in the rest of Greece.

While K relaxed at the hotel, M walked to the abandoned monastery of Agia Ekaterini, after which we both headed along the coast away from Roda town for a drink, before returning for dinner to the ever constant 80's music and theme from Zorba the Great.

Day 29 Roda, Corfu

We drove to the little town of Paleokastrista for lunch which has a small beach and a nice harbour with cute restaurants overlooking the water. We weren't the only ones who had turned up in the town for lunch, a flock of goats thought it was Christmas when they found the overflowing mounds of garbage and were doing their best to help Corfu with the rubbish issue by munching through as much as they could.

After spending the afternoon chilling at a beach side cafe the haze had lifted a little from yesterday and the mountains of Albania were a bit easier to see. Albania is our next stop and is only 20kms away from Corfu as the crow flies.

Day 28 Athens to Corfu

Our flight to Corfu was at 10am so we dropped our rental car off at the Athens Airport then took the easy hour long flight to our last Greek stop, the island of Corfu. At the other end we picked up another hire car, this dropping off a dirty car and picking up a clean one a couple of hours later works well!

We are staying on the beach in Roda which is about an hour's drive from Corfu town and the airport. The first and continuing thing we noticed was the massive piles of garbage on the side of the roads. Apparently the issue has been going on for over a year, the locals that live near the tip say it is too appalling to live by and are picketing the gates and refusing municipal trucks access. The local government's recommendation is to keep your rubbish at home, however everyone just leaves it in the street.

Our hotel choice seems rather lovely and there aren't too many tourists yet. The beach is a little disappointing, we had read it was sandy with a few pebbles but that description should be reversed to very pebbly with a little sand.

We took the nice walk into the busy part of town, here the beaches are sandier but still not the great beaches we are used to at home.

Day 27 Delphi to Artemida

We felt quite smug as we left Delphi and there were already 15 buses at the site before 10am. We counted another 32 buses on their way to Delphi in the next half hour until we turned off the major road to head to the seaside town of Paralia.

We wound our way through sleepy villages until we arrived at the even sleepier Paralia, apart from a couple of old guys sitting on a veranda and a tiny pebble beach there wasn't any sign of life. We had considered staying there the night before so we were pleased we hadn't. We entered Artemida into the GPS and kept driving, eventually joining onto the official Marathon route. We have realised that no one takes any notice of the speed limits so we don't either.

Artemida was exactly the type of town we were looking for for our final night on mainland Greece. It is 15 minutes from the Athens airport and on the sea, with restaurants on the sand at the waters edge, so we booked ourselves into a room for the night.

Day 26 Thessaloniki to Delphi

We would have liked to have left the car at Thessaloniki and continued travelling north but the exorbitant one way rental fee of over $800 means it's better to head back to Athens and pick up a $100-ish plane fare to our next destination, which we decide is the island of Corfu. We collected our car from the car park where the attendant seems to spend his day playing an advanced game of tetris with the cars in his care as he skillfully manipulates them around the tiny area to quickly return yours.

With a day of driving in front of us we are quickly reminded of how difficult it is to see when the traffic lights change to red as the only light is next to you and none further forward, in fact someone has a theory on the internet that that is why old Greek people are hunched over, because they have spent their lives hunched over their steering wheels trying to see the traffic lights. Most Greek drivers use what we would call the emergency lane by driving half in and half out and therefore creating enough room for faster drivers to pass.

As we need petrol we come across a large service stop complete with food that is more like the ones we have at home. K ordered what was called a sausage pie, it looked like a sausage roll but once she bit into it she realised it was a hot dog encased in pastry. We continue driving with the snowcapped Mt Olympus, the largest mountain in Greece in front of us and road signs warning us of bears in the area, which is as novel to us as kangaroo signs must be for overseas visitors in Australia.

We make it to Thermopylae where there is a little information and an impressive monument to commemorate the war between 100,000 Persians and 7,000 Greeks. Thermopylae, meaning Hot Gates is a large and very hot spring with a strong sulphur smell.

We made it to Delphi mid-afternoon so about 5pm we decided to visit the archaeological site and take advantage of the summer late closing time of 8pm and also hopefully miss the Athens day tour buses. When we went to pay the €12 per person entrance fee we were told it was free for the day as it was International Museum Day, we were glad we didn't put the visit off until the morning!.

It was a bit of a hike to the stadium at the top but well worth the effort and the crowds were very light. As beautiful as the Greek archaeological sites are its a shame there isn't more money spent on restoration as they don't measure up to other sites we've seen, such as Ephesus in Turkey.

We decide to stay the night in Delphi and enjoy the restaurants with the beautiful valley views, as well as the free desserts that are offered after every meal in Greece.

Day 25 Thessaloniki

Our Greek vocabulary is growing at about two words a week but we expect it will be like the Swahili words we picked up in Africa from which the only word we can now remember is Muzungu (white person). We started with efharisto (thank you), which apparently we say way too much and the Greeks find it annoying, its not necessary to thank your waiter for bringing a drink, a nod will do. Then we learnt kalimera and kalispera (good morning and good afternoon, although their afternoon starts much later than ours) we then moved on to ne for yes,(that sounds confusingly like nay), yassas (hi, is used a lot as a greeting), yamas (cheers) and paracolo (you're welcome, said to us a lot).

We join the free walking tour of Thessaloniki that goes from 10 - 12, there's not much walking but we hear plenty of historic stories and myths as we see the main highlights of the city centre, We also realise that we often see black gowned priests with long white beards walking around the streets but we are yet to see any nuns. 

After a walk along the promenade past the historical white tower we decide to do something quite out of character and we get on a cheesy pirate boat for a 30 minute cruise of the bay. The cruise is "free" providing you buy a drink on board, the drinks are only about €3 more than in the bars and it is now very hot so we decide to take some time out and chill on the boat for a while. Our pirate ship comes complete with a pirate decked out in jewellery and a large skull and bones flag to wave from the bow while ringing a large brass bell to attract other tourists. The music on board is the same music we have heard everywhere across Greece, 1980's pop, it seems that Greece has been musically stuck in a time warp, on the plus side we know all the words which is not something we can say about contemporary pop.

While eating dinner about 8.30pm the skies darken as they did at the same time last night and we watch as parents hurriedly gather up their children from playing and rush them home before the nightly thunderstorm starts, its a good line to have, "you can play outside until the rain starts then we have to go home".

Day 24 Meteora to Thessaloniki

Meteora is made up of massive rock pinnacles, and on 24 of these pinnacles are monasteries. The pinnacles are immense solid rocks split by earthquakes and weathered by wind and water over 60 million years. The monks built their monasteries on top of them during a period between the 14th to 16th centuries as it was considered the perfect place to achieve absolute isolation, and it has now become a holy place for Christian pilgrims around the world, as well as a major tourist destination.

Fortunately for us they no longer use ropes and nets to ascend the monasteries, there is a perfectly good road that will take you to the gates. The down side to this is that the bus loads of tourists on tours also get to bypass the rope system and because we were there just after 9am we became one of the mob (if possible we usually try and time our visits to avoid them if we can). 

We started off at the biggest monastery, the Megalo (Great) Meteora, There are still many steps to ascend and as women aren't allowed to wear pants K borrowed a wrap around skirt from the pile. The monastery is in superb condition with a stunning church where many people are praying, including orthodox priests with mobile phones. The views are breathtaking as are the crowds and we drive onto the next on our list.

Monastery Varlaam is a slightly smaller but just as immaculate version of the previous monastery. Apparently women have only been permitted inside since 1928 when there was a fire and they helped to put it out. The frescoes are vibrantly preserved and we watched a man working on one of them above his head. One room holds an immense 16th century oak barrel that a lot of people think held wine to while away the hours but was actually used to store water.

The third monastery was St Stephen's but here the mass of teenage school groups and tourists made it a crush and as the owner of our hotel said, seen one monastery seen them all so we set our GPS to take us to Thessaloniki and we hit the road.

Thessaloniki has a large promenade on the water with many upmarket restaurants and bars, no signs of austerity measures and high unemployment rates in this part of the city at least. Although the promenade is quite nice there is a major road between the restaurants and the water so it is very noisy.

Day 23 Ioannina to Meteora

We headed off into the mountains to visit the Vikos Gorge area. We stopped at the cute little village of Monodendri that felt like it belonged in the Swiss Alps, although everything was made from the local stone which gave it different look. We went looking for some breakfast and although it was after 9am the village looked asleep until we found a place where we could order coffee and cake for brekky, very Greek.

We then drove on through the fascinating Stone Forest which is something we have never seen before, literally a forest consisting of massive greenery interspersed with natural layered slate type stone. We stopped at the Oxia viewpoint which has impressive views of the gorge that is classified as one of the deepest gorges in the world, it was also lovely and quiet with only two other couples there.We drove onto Vradeto village which has a great lookout of Vikos Gorge.

The mountain roads are really interesting because every couple of kilometers you come across sheepdogs, Mareemas and other breeds that are looking after flocks of goats and sheep, its fascinating to see so many of them doing their job without any shepherds overseeing them. At one point on the road the flock decided to cross the road in front of us, one of the rams got its horns stuck in some pig wire and the Mareema was standing behind it while the flock moved on. How does a dog deal with the difficult dilemma of sacrificing one for the greater good?

We continued our country drive dodging all the cattle who believed the road belonged to them and stopping at some stunning old stone bridges that crossed the Vikos River.

The country roads are very winding with many switch backs and there are many shrines, some of then quite beautiful and elaborate, originally we thought they were to mark a death on the road but there were so many we decided they must be for people to offer a prayer for safety while driving, but we later found that the former is correct and that they are recognising the death of a loved one. We were sad to leave this beautiful part of Greece but we needed to get to Meteora that night.

We made good time and arrived in the town of Kastraki at the foot of the majestic Meteora. Once again the cute village of Kastraki wouldn't look out of place in the Swiss Alps. We were amused to find the Sydney Hotel complete with a large sign of a map of Australia with the obligatory kangaroo in the middle.