promenadingpeacocks

Split has a castle (diocletian’s palace) rather than an old town and it is full of souvenir shops, bars and restaurants. Our lovely hosts had made sure we were furnished with maps which ivana annotated to indicate the best places to eat. Ivica told us she is his wonderful business manager and they seem to have a lovely father/daughter relationship. Ivana told us she is studying law and russian as she believes these will be increasingly useful skills in croatia. Another energetic young person!

We had gone out earlier to find breakfast ingredients and discovered a nearby supermarket. It was quite novel to sit at ‘our’ table and enjoy a light brekkie for a change.

Afterwards, we walked down to the castle wall on the east side which is lined with market stalls. Lou tried to frogmarch me past but did have a little look of his own! Once inside the castle the crush of tourists really began.


Guides led their groups, one holding up a large paper flower. I visited the cathedral and the bapistry while lou people watched. We wandered the alleys looking for the recommended restaurant.

It was in a quiet square so we sat down for a pause and coffee. A girl working there offered to take our photo when she saw lou taking one….of me!!! Lou gave in gracefully and even smiled. She then chatted away about croatia and good places to eat elsewhere in the town. We had already booked for the evening and she suggested certain tables and to be sure to get the waiter who explained the menu as he was so amusing!


Coffee finished we followed the walking trail around the castle including making a wish while touching the big toe of the enormous statue (grgur ninski) by the northern golden gate! Then we went to find the fish market and check out nostromo’s menu for lunch. Good choices but we fancied something light. The fish market opposite had nearly finished for the day so no photo opportunities. More meandering brought us out on the riva, the quay,  with even more cafes and restaurants.

We read menus and opted for one that offered a platter of dalmatian charcuterie. It was very good, especially the venison saucisse. Afterwards, our mission was to return to ‘mihaela apartments’ and take photos. Lou’s idea and a good one.

The front had a ladder up against it and building work was going on. The trouble is, said lou, it all looks so much better in the photos full of sunshine! But still no name and nothing on the other side of the building either. Later i had an email from booking.com saying that i had been named as a noshow which means forfeiting the whole amount of the booking, 220 euros! 😦 hey ho, win some, lose some!

Carrying my cards, magnet, impulse-buy top etc up the hill to apartment maric in 36 degrees was challenging and a zzz with the aircon on was lovely.

Much later, we headed back down the hill for our date with the fish restaurant. It didn’t disappoint. Lou reckons the sauce on his john dory was the best he’d ever had. My monkfish was pretty good too. The whole evening was lovely and i told myself (and lou) we must never forget how lucky we are to be able to do this sort of thing. ‘Yes, dear’ came the long suffering reply. Strolling down to the centre we found buskers entertaining people sitting around the square in front of the cathedral.

What a shame the chauffeur doesn’t dance. Mind you, nobody else was either. Some people just ain’t got no romance in their soul!

Another long drive on sunday with three borders to cross but first breakfast at floga. We were asked not to come down until 8.30. When we walked into the bar i could see why. It was full of men drinking coffee and raki. The car park was full of cars, vans and mopeds. Drinking and driving? The lady owner brought a paper cloth for our table and breakfast arrived.

Bread, butter and jam and on a plate each an omelette, a slice of ham and a large slice of very salty feta. The feta disappeared into my bag to be disposed of later. Sad but what to do? Neither of us could face cheese at that time of day. At berat it arrived but on a side plate so it could be reused!

As we left i went into a tiny shop to get a packet of tissues. I only had a 1000 lek note for the price of 80. I tipped out my small change, which wasn’t enough. The chap looked at it, scooped it off the counter and gave me the tissues with a big smile. A lovely gesture to start the day.

Shkoder was busy and lou negotiated the bicycles, pedestrians, carts, cars appearing suddenly….. out of shkoder and the relative calm of the road to hotti i hani, the border town.

We had looked at various routes to split and plumped for the road south to the coast from podrica to avoid the twisting albiet beautiful one through the mountains. We drove through darkening skies until a tremendous rain storm hit us.

Lou had been saying he needed a good shower to clean the windscreen properly. He got it!

The montenegran coast is pretty but too overdeveloped and the road out to tivat and its airport quite ugly although quick. By lunchtime we were back at the car ferry across the boka.

Once over we stopped to eat in yet another pizzeria but managed to find chicken salad for me and toasted sarnies for lou. Enormous portions, comme d’hab!

Onward over the border and then the stunning ride up the dalmatian coast, so far unspoiled.


Each vista produced a ‘oh, lovely’ from me and a resigned ‘yes, dear’ from lou. Afternoon tea and coffee stop in bosnia herzogovena and then the relief of the motorway after ploce.

We thought we had split sussed, the gps knew the street for a change. But no! A narrow lane that i walked down to find a spot for lou to park and then a hunt around the alleys for number 12. Number 12 turned out to be a scruffy building with a dirty entrance hall. Meanwhile i was constantly calling the number i had been given and getting no reply. After a frustrating wait and getting more and more apprehensive about the area, i told lou, sod this, let’s find somewhere else. We drove around a bit only seeing umpteen ‘apartmen’ blue signs until my hero spotted a lit up one.

I sprinted back down the hill and long story short we found a bed for two nights. God bless ivica and his family!

Saturday was the long drive northwards. We knew the part after tirana was bad but were more concerned about the first bit back over the magnificent but time consuming mountains beside the sea.


Google and the gps revealed a route that struck inland before turning left for gjirokaster and tepelene. So that’s the way we went! Eric was horrified we were leaving so early. Nine o’clock? Early? Refusing his kind offers of coffee and/or water for the journey, we shook hands and took our leave. Earlier, he had told me that he is greek and goes off to work in athens for three months over the winter ‘for myself’. Next year he is going to texas and, maybe, sweden.

The road was faster and straighter than the one further west. We should have used tomtom rather than lynnelynne said lou but did concede we had seen some fabulous scenery via lynnelynne’s route! For lunch we stopped at one of the ubiquituous gas stations and had very good forcaccia. At durres we found the road to shkoder smoothly even if the first bridge wasn’t! We began to recognise things as we joined the link road from tirana. At shkoder we found the city centre but were frustrated to find the information kiosk closed. A call to the hotel floga to discover we were two crossroads away. We drove over the two crossroads and began to leave the posher bit behind us. But there was the sign as directed and down a right fork and right again into a scruffy street and there was hotel floga.

Some squeezing into the car park out front and then shown to our room by the owner and her english speaking nephew.

Very loud music issued from the downstairs bar and then a whole wedding party swept out for photos. A good omen? Or going to be kept awake all night?

The room was ok with an enormous bath in the ensuite. We had no intention of sightseeing after the long drive so snoozed until dinner time. The nephew had said we could eat downstairs and the wedding celebration finished by five o’clock. When we arrived in the ‘restaurant’ it was a big echoing bar with some men sitting about watching the football on a wide screen tv in the wall.


We had changed and felt a bit out of place! 🙂 the lady owner bustled about putting a cloth on our table and explaining as best she could what things were. She and i had a giggle over the farmyard noises we made to identify the ‘mishi’. The food was basic with no veg in sight but the chips were good and came with a dish of grated cheese to sprinkle over them. Did shkoder invent cheesy chips? 🙂

We bought two glasses of wine that turned out to be quite good. Her nephew turned up to make sure everything was ok. We had a chat and discovered he had just graduated from six years of medical training in florence. He was off to naples in november for five years of specialisation. His body language was suggesting ‘no way’ when i asked if he would come back to albania afterwards. We said it was sad if the country was losing all its young people and he replied that there had been a thousand in greece before the crisis there. Now it was about 700, 000 and 500,000 in italy. Hard for a country to develop if the younger gogetters get out.

To finish the meal lou decided a raki was in order on our last night in albania. A large one arrived…i have a photo of lou with a big soppy grin on his face, a raki induced one!  🙂

On friday evening in sarande we played hunt the stamps. I had written a few postcards and needed stamps. Postboxes i had located. A lot of helpful people sent me to different shops but no stamps.


We had decided to wander along the prom to the little harbour to another recommended restaurant and my sketchy map said there was a post office near a museum. I finally found it up two flights of steps connecting two roads, (my knees and i will remember this holiday for the climbing!). The lady behind the counter said i needed three stamps for each card. I just about managed to stick them on without covering up the addresses!

The little harbour was sweet and the restaurant busy. We found a table near the water and had great pizza and downed a bottle of italian gavi.


‘A bottle!’ The waiter had asked as if we were utter old soaks. Wine is mainly sold by the glass here but can be awful and we felt like celebrating. A meander back with lou taking photos of the moon and me mooching among the souvenir stalls. A chap sent up blue lit helicoptor thingies which reminded me of the bund in shanghai. I bought a little bowl ( 1000 lek) for aperos and, further along from a boy on his own, a pretty embroidered purse (200 lek). all of 8.50 euros in total.

The bowl was our sort of price, the purse a stupid one. I told the young lad so but he replied no one would buy them at anything higher. It seemed rude to offer to pay more for it but we often feel we are taking advantage of such cheap living.

Well, the author of my guide book may dislike serande but as seaside towns go it is certainly not the ugliest i’ve visited.


Watching the sun light up the buildings across the bay was lovely yesterday morning and seeing a fisherman row his boat slowly along then stopping to haul in his nets. All very pictur – es – queu! Close to the water’s edge there are bars and restaurants and little beaches with parasols.


The first night we were recommended to a nearby fish restaurant where we ate an albanian speciality called saganova, seemed an apt dish for we oldies! 🙂
The purpose of coming here was to visit butrint, a unesco protected archeological site further south. Having abandonned the tempting but logistically challenging notion of taking a boat to corfu we ate a late breakfast on the huge terrace busily attended to by eric and his oppo.

While there we noticed a couple of coaches pull up next door and disgorge their ocupents who took over the neighbouring terrace. Late breakfast or early coffee break? As we went to find a bank machine two more arrived and the tourists swarmed into our place. By the time we got back all four coaches had left. Bet they are off to butrint i suggested. And they were.


Arriving there after a short and straightforward drive (amazing) we found the four of them parked up. So our walk around the designated route was punctuated by our negotiating groups being lectured in german or english or ?


We were faster so by halfway we had skipped ahead so could enjoy scrambling up and down the ruins almost on our own. The site is bounded by a lake and a sea channel.

Happily it was very wooded and we walked in the shade a lot of the time. The heat has taken us by surprise and the family at the berat hotel told us it was unusually hot for the time of year.

Having paid appropriate attention to all the information boards and seen almost every part of the remains lou settled for an icecream while i plundered the handicrafts stall. Then it was into the nearby hotel for lunch on its shady terrace. We watched as the coaches thundered off. One englishman trying to take the same people free photo as us had said they were on a day trip from corfu. I had read that the bulk of tourists in sarande come to the town that way.

We continued to sit in the shade and enjoy our situation a deux. 

Next to the car park there was a chain ferry that looked as if it had been thrown together by school kids using old floorbòards but no tools, nails or screws.


Looking at the map the greek border was ‘only down the road a bit’. My guide book said there were some interesting traditional houses just this side. So off we went. First the ferry. The suntanned, tattooed, stripped to his shorts and really fancied himself young chap waved us on, and on…and a bit more….AND A BIT MORE! I waited for the front of the car to plunge into the depths, taking us with it. A short clanking across for three euros and then a drive through a landscape of rushes and scruffy fields.


Lou negotiated his way around potholes and lumps and bumps. Cars with greek number plates came by. At one point we passed a tiny village with a couple of bars and a closed gas station. We drove on expecting a junction and another village. The going got slower although cars still passed us from the other direction. Finally the road surface gave way to dust and rocks. Enough, i said, we need the car to get us home. Greek border, interesting houses or not, please can we turn round? Reluctantly, lou gave in. I’d do it in a 4×4, he said. I’d let you in a 4×4, i replied! We drove back and now more cars came past, some quite fast given the conditions. Two motorbikes. Clearly foreigners, they were both wearing cradh helmets! 🙂


at the ferry we stopped to look at the pasha’s castle, part of the butrint site. We climbed up to the top of the walls, avoiding the workmen’s tools, and took the obligatory photos. Earlier, lou had commented that there were only so many photos you can take of stone ruins. Back at the ferry ‘fancies himself’ waved us right the very edge again while two french 4x4s (!) and a small albanian car squeezed on. Arriving at the other bank fh wasn’t happy so shouted to his mate in the engine house back on the other side to pull us out a bit and have another go at ramming the jetty. Ok, this time, so we were allowed off! Back to the hotel with no name for a restful zzz

Our journey from berat to serande was alive with livestock! Before leaving berat i wanted to go up to the kale, castle. A very large walled edifice and full of houses.

We took the ‘better’ road up (it is all relative, we are learning) and lou did a bit of tyre squealing on the steep marble cobbles to arrive at the tiny parking.

We explored some alleyways, watched a chap taking his chickens for a walk, saw a tethered sheep making short work of what look like a flowering shrub, looked out from some viewpoints but, even at 10 in the morning, the heat was beating down on us.


I bought a naff souvenir of which my brother would be envious and we beat a retreat to the car, just in time as four coach loads of tourists and school kids arrived. As we negotiated our way around the coaches a small boy appeared driving a flock of goats.


Almost as if he had been waiting to create a photo opportunity. His sister (?)came behind. They were across the path and out of sight very quickly. Why not in school,  i wondered.

We took the road back up to lushnje as we knew that one and then turned south to fier and onto vlore. South of vlore the road was beautiful. It wound along the coast revealing inviting little bays and shady palm trees. Chaps in local costume jumped out in front of the cat desperately waving you into their restaurants. We were peckish and so gave in to one of them and parked opposite a shaded terrace.


Whole sheep were turning on several spits in a covered bbq area but we stuck to seafood salad which was just right on such a hot day. In tirane we had passed a bbq shop with chicken turning on a spit and individual sheep heads complete with teeth and eyes!  

I had read that you must be careful of the water but every bar or restaurant asks if you want a bottle and a make called terpelene seems to have cornered the market. Near sarande i saw the same name on a signpost so maybe it is a spa town?

Driving on, the road began to twist inland and climb. The views began to open out and i began to see the albanian landscape i had seen in books etc. The occasional cow or three mooched into the road.

We climbed into a national park and the road got higher and higher. Arriving at what appeared to be the top we found ourselves looking down a vertiginous smooth mountainside that disappeared into the sea many metres down.

The spot height on the map said 1200 metres! The road was single lane and we descended down slowly through umpteen hairpin bends. No escape roads here!

Once more i took my hat off to ‘only the chauffeur’ who asked if i knew the road did this? Nope was the answer. Even when we got down near sea level the road continued to twist and turn through small villages and olive groves.


The drive was enlivened by occasional brushes with flocks of goats who refused to move, the odd cow and even a pig in one village heading very determinedly in the same direction as us.


Off on his hols? So it was with great relief that we arrived in sarande. But then came the great hotel hunt. Our gps doesn’t do co-ordinates for some reason and insists on telling us the road names we put in are ‘not known’. So, armed with a sketchy map from my guide book we toiled up and down the road full of hotels and apartments. Asking at one place we were told ’50 minutes away’. That took us out of town to some building sites! The phone kept telling me ‘unsuscribed’ when i rang. So i rang booking.com who were lovely. The chap looked on his map and told me which two hotels it was between. We found one but not the other. I asked some locals and they didn’t know. Lou pulled over yet again and asked a guy sitting outside his bar. He yelled at a chap watering some flowers who turned out to be eric ‘i tell you everything’ of our hotel. He couldn’t do enough for us. Showed us the parking, heaved both our bags up the stairs, one in each hand, to our room on the second floor and then brought us a free drink each.


The room has an uninterrupted view of the sea and corfu and we have a tiny balcony with a table and chairs. Wonderful but why does the place not have a sign with its name. Zilch on the front! Lou says it should have a dirty great notice saying ‘lynne booked here’! 🙂

Berat is famous for its white stone houses and their windows, ‘the city of a thousand windows’.

The area is known as the mangalem which was where we were based. A smaller area across the river is called gorica.

Mangalem is traditionally muslim and gorica christian. We started our day by climbing up and around the alleyways of the mangalem. A good night’s sleep had made me feel much more positive and that part of berat was much cleaner than tirana had been.

After some clambering and back tracking we came out on the cobbled marble hill to the castle but decided that could wait until the next morning. Opposite us was the ethnographic museum which was tiny but an absolute delight. A house had been built in traditional style using traditional methods and then filled with museum pieces showing the clothes, crafts, tools etc of berat in the past.  The staff were very welcoming and noticed we may have missed one room as a german group were being lectured in it as we moved around. I wrote in the visitors book as i always feel a bit let down if our clients don’t! 🙂

walking down the hill lou spotted a camper van so had to take a look. It had a world map across the bonnet and turned out to belong to neville and barbara, two aussies a bit younger than us who had been on the road since last january, driving overland from china. Music to lou’s ears! So a chat and a nosey in the van, bien sur. Names were swapped and an invite to crouzi if they come our way! 🙂


Coffee time and then a visit to the ‘historical centre’ a collection of three buildinGs, one of them being the king’s mosque.
Another larger german group were being talked at but i slipped around them and admired the impressive painted wooden ceiling.


Two small boys were making some attempt at praying, each trying to outdo the other. It didn’t look very devout!



A hunt for a different place for lunch which ended up as soup and bread in an albanian version of the ouvrier cafe. Then the zzz through the hottest hours of the afternoon before exploring the gorica.

Similar to the mangalem but with two churches, sadly both shut. A couple of drinks at ‘our’ place until one of them opened around 5.30.



We studied the icons and enjoyed the perfume rosemary lined stone pathway outside.

An evening meal in an upstairs restaurant lou had spotted from the terrace across the river the night before (we were running out of choices at antigone). The terrace was open on the road and river side. Suddenly we realised three men were moving down the river bed. The sudden swish of a circular net being thrown showed them to be fishermen. What might they be catching we wondered? Earlier when we crossed a different foot bridge over the osium river we had noticed very strange and very large animal prints in the mud below. What might try to catch our fishermen?

Meanwhile we had opted for shishkebab for lou and lamb for me. The garnish had nine choices of veg plus chips. The albanians must certainly be getting their five a day! 🙂

The antigone restaurant became our restaurant of choice over the time we were in berat. It was up umpteen steps0 but had several terraces overlooking the river and mangalem.

One particular waiter got to know us and we learned a lot from him about his feelings for berat and his future in albania. He said he was orthodox and from one of the original families of berat.

He was born there but grew up in greece where he learnt his good english. He was going back to his dentistry studies in tirana when the summer was over. Dentistry is where the money is, he told us. It is private in italy and expensive. The italians come over to albania to get their teeth fixed. Ever since we had crossed the croatian border we had been struck by the number of big posters advertising dental work and dental implants.

Our waiter, whose name we forgot to ask, said the training was good and so was the dentistry. It was hard to think it may be so having seen the awful state of the ambulances clustered around the hospital in durres ( i said we saw a lot of durres!) but i hope it is for our waiter’s future.

He told us berat closes down in winter and everyone tries to live off the money they make from tourism. Our hotel certainly had a high turnover of clients. I spotted one of them at butrint this lunchtime!

I was incredibly tired yesterday due to not sleeping much at all. I think the prospect of going out on the albanian roads again was playing on my mind. Suffice to say i was not at my sunniest and when we got lost around durres i was ready to throw in the proverbial towel. This was a bit unfair on the albanians we had met so far who had treated us with great courtesy (unless they were behind a wheel!). The girl on reception on sunday night, the waiter in the little restaurant and the chap who had parked our car and then brought it back to us. He helped explain the road we ought to take to berat and which towns to look out for. Lou offered to tip him for his help with the car and bags but he refused and said it was his job. Then we were embarrassed that we may have offended him but he said no and wished us a good time in berat. First we had to get out of tirana and that is no easy matter due to the almost complete lack of road signs.


Turning right ‘at the crossroads’ as directed by our hotel guy we found ourselves driving into the market area we had explored the day before. Cars, vans, bikes, people and a road bisected by trench like potholes. The car dipped and swayed like a ship at sea. I waited for something important to go crunch underneath. Eventually, by following our noses we found a sign for durres and a road that looked like a proper motorway.


Posh lights and intermittant fancy white footbridges. 90km limit but we couldn’t relax. For example, later that day i saw a man lifting his bicycle over the crash barrier into the fast lane so he could cross the road.

We saw a lot more of durres that either of us ever want to see again. The gps took us to the edge of town and then went to sleep for the duration. Suffice to say we saw the oil terminal and jetties against a background of blue sea and sky but no sign of the onward motorway to lushnje. Only when we gave up and took the last option, the motorway back to tirane, did we find the turning a kilometer up the road! This motorway wasn’t as posh but was lined with huge blocks of flats.

According to my guide book durres is a popular beach resort south of the city. Once on this road our spirits rose and we eventually stopped for coffee at one of the posher looking gas stations. Very colourful and very loud music which the boy behind the bar turned down as we walked in. A lot of bars and restaurants have flat screen tvs on the wall showing music videos or the news but always with the music turned up high.

My cappucino was wonderful, topped with chantilly in the french style and the coffee itself flavoured with cinnamon. We pressed on feeling much better. The signs began to get better and berat began to feature.

Our hotel guy had said there was a new road but these things are all relative. But it was a new road, still being finished in parts but easy to follow.

We still had to be careful of the minibuses that stopped suddenly for passengers but we were getting resigned to them by now. Berat was much bigger and busier than i had imagined from my guide book but easy to navigate. We parked by the river and walked up the steep cobbled street to the hotel.

I was given a key to 204 but by the time lou got back with the car ( and did some brilliant reversing up the slippery marble cobbles) a younger chap had arrived plus a girl who spoke good english. We are giving you a choice of room she announced and showed us a much bigger room with a view over the rooftops to the river.

Lovely. We dumped the bags and went off to the restaurant she recommended across the river.

The traditional arrival beer for lou and a spritzer for me, once i had educated the waiter as to what a spritzer was!  🙂

Our sightseeing days are developing a pattern due to the unexpected high temperatures, 31 – 34. We amble about in the morning, stop for coffee, amble some more and then look for somewhere inviting for lunch. The afternoon starts with a little zzz or ‘resting the eyelids’ as lou calls it.


The tirana lunch was koftas (greek influence as well as italian now we’re further south). Lou’s came in a thick tomato sauce and mine with four big chips and salad. We had chosen an orange and olive salad for himself and a mixed vegetable salad for me. Lou had a jar’s worth of olives and my salad would have fed a family of four! My koftas were as big as burgers and there were three of them! You can see we had gone for the light lunch option! 🙂 so a good zzzz after that.


Towards the evening we decided to head back down the shady walk and on over the river (aka open sewer) down to mother teresa square. I had read about a statue to her which we assumed would be in the square named after her but we never found it. The boulevard down to it was lined with pine trees and several parks where a lot of families relaxed in the cooling air.


We paused to look at the pyramid built as a museum to hoxha but never properly finished. Small boys clambered up its sides and the top bristled with telegraph masts, so some use after all. We passed young buskers and older men and women cooking corn cobs over charcoal which they sold as snacks. Walking back up to the top again we found ourselves in skanderbeg square. We risked life and limb crossing over to the middle so i could take a photo of skanda on his horse!


Crossing again we were in front of another big new building celebrated by the city, the opera, which was showing don giovanni.

Still feeling full from our light lunch we opted to go back to the good little restaurant near our hotel for their delicious homemade soup and maybe a little pasta?  🙂