promenadingpeacocks

Lou had good news and bad news yesterday. Good – the national art gallery was closed so he didn’t have to trail around after me, bad – a highly recommended restaurant in a lovely old ottoman building was closed too. The perils of doing sightseeing on a monday in tirana! 🙂


Some one told me that 80% of what there is to see is around the skanderbeg square but we walked further afield in the course of the day. It was very hot so that began to limit how much we did for any lengh of time. Away from the square it was easier to find tree lined streets and small parks for shade.


We started by heading for the clocktower which is written about as being a site tiranians are very proud of. Not proud enough to put it on a postcard or to charge an entrance fee. Lou declined but i decided i did want to climb the 93 steps to the top. A girl in a nearby teeny museum with holes in the floor unlocked the wooden door so i could begin my ascent!

A tad narrow and rather like climbing a ladder but up i went. I’d love to say the view was worth it but tirana doesn’t have a majestic skyline.

However, i had a bird’s eye view of the neighbouring mosque and the square although i couldn’t help noticing the layer of pollution over the tops of the distant suburbs. Back down the ladder and into the sunshine. Then it was the turn of the mosque.

It looked shut but trying the door brought a chap to it who waved us in but asked that we remove our shoes.

The inner room was decorated on every surface and i was surprised to see representative art. No figures but stylised flowers and even buildings. Lack of a tourist orientated system meant, again there was no charge but, also, no books or leaflet to tell you more about the place.


The two men in charge were as helpful as they could be with only a couple of words of english eg ‘English? Liverpool? Manchester?’ One proudly showed me a copy of the koran in english and opened it at a page that corresponded to an embroidered arabic text on the wall. The other jingled small change in his hand and we whispered to each other regarding euro notes! Gesturing to the balcony above we were shown to a small door and a tiny flight of steps cut into the stone wall. A bit of a squeeze but we made it up and, even more amazingly, given my dodgy knees, back down again. We had been allowed to take photos and despite being told i didn’t need to i had stuck my sunhat on. We felt grateful for the experience and after putting our shoes back on, said goodbye and passed across a ten euro note. That can buy a decent meal for two here so we hoped it was sufficient. There was a lot of a hand going to the heart and then it being offered to be shaken. The door shut and we were back outside in the blinding sunshine. I remarked to lou, how long before there will be a kiosk outside selling entrance tickets and umpteen stalls selling religious trinkets as we had found in padua outside the basilica? Needing to escape heat we backtracked to ‘our’boulevard to find a shady table for coffee. Poring over our two not very good city centre maps we decided to combine a bit more wandering the sights with looking for good place for lunch. Jumping puddles and broken paving stones and clinging to each other as we crossed roads we found the pedestrianised street that began behind the building of a huge new block and a small shady park.

The park had several sculped heads of different chaps and there were many groups of men playing dominoes. We sauntered past the remains of some ancient city foundations, didn’t find the ottoman house but did see a remnant of wall and wooden door hiding a plot of waste ground.

A couple of souvenir shops yielded a magnet and a few heat curled postcards.



Circling back we discovered the lovely old building that houses the recommended restaurant but it was shut! Using my invaluable bradt guide we found an alternative with a lovely tree shaded terrace where we tried the albanian choices on the menu.

We may have been concentrating on the traffic and cyclists with a death wish but we did gather some first impressions on the drive down to tirana. Lou was fascinated by the overwhelming number of gas stations. His enthusiasm spread to me and we began to look for each new name. He spotted and i jotted! We reached thirty three different companies. These all looked like major chains as each had all the usual accessories of huge canopies with name and prices on tall signs. My favourite was ‘kastrati’ oil. I’m very shallow!

At the croation border point goats had ambled through from the albanian side with no one taking any notice. Once in albania we saw horses and cattle grazing on various bits of roadside grass or even on traffic islands.

Milo had warned us that driving in albania was slow because of the horse and carts. They were about the only vehicles moving slowly! Stray dogs roamed and snuffled around the bins and, due to the careless driving, several dead ones lay abandonned in the road. There were a lot of big bins. I wondered why people didn’t put their rubbish in them, seeming to prefer to dump it next to each one. Then i began to notice the men and women who were methodically rooting through each bin and discarding unwanted items any old where. Looking for food? Things that can be sold on for recycling? The country houses we passed were individually built with colourful rendering.

They were set in gardens full of produce and, often, with vine covered porches. We saw fields with old fashioned stooks of straw and in one, three people sat up to their waists in maize debris as they ripped the corn cobs from their husks. Here in tirana there is a mix of spanking new and crumbling into decay.

Our hotel and the spotless and beautifully decorated restaurant we ate in last night sit opposite a row of dilapidated buildings with coils of electrical cable snaking down their front walls and across the pavement.

Off the main road with its bars and good shops at the end of our street lie piles of rubble, scruffy blocks of flats, people selling cigarettes out of suitcases and shoeshine ‘boys’.

This morning a woman suddenly stopped in front of me to scavenge in a big bin. A bit like some city dwellers in the uk who can never pass a skip?  🙂

It is always a bit of a gamble booking hotels in places you have never visited before. I flick from booking.com to trip advisor to google earth to try and get a feel for a place and still you can be caught out. The capital hotel tirana seemed to have conflicting views from clients who bothered to review it but the combination of city centre and private parking swung it.

The car has been driven away to an underground car park somewhere opposite for the huge fee of 3 euros a day and we are almost smack in the centre of town. After the rather parochial decor of our last three ‘apartments’ (rooms!) the cream and coffee colour scheme with touches of forest green/khaki woodwork is calming and comfortable.

Even the shovelling and occasional banging of the restoration work going on in the building next door makes a welcome change from three lots of canned music and the clatter of cutlery in kotor. The bathroom is very chic ; square wash basin, wet room shower. A real haven away from the traffic and car horns of the city. And a huge surprise given what we had seen of albania on the journey here!

 Well, what a day. Still trying to get my head around it. So many sights, so many emotions. Lou says he is ‘just the chauffeur’ on these trips but what a chauffeur!  The man has nerves of steel while i turn into a squeaking wreck beside him! leaving kotor i persuaded him to ignore the gps and take the road to cetinje.



In the guide book there was a mouth watering description of the old mule track it was based on and called the ladder of cattori, the italian name for kotor. It climbed and twisted and we stopped for pictures thinking that was it. But, oh no, it wasn’t! It climbed and turned (around 26 in all, they were numbered but we lost count!) and became narrower and narrower. The view widened and widened until we could see most of the boka bay and over the mountains to the adriatic. Of course, umpteen cars, campers and vans lay in wait to try and pass us at the hairiest places.

Lou edged forward and i tried not to look at the drop beside me. We drove over the col and into a stunning, (sorry, running out of adjectives) mountainous landscape that stretched away to the north.

Then a swoop down into a fertile and flat plain with little ice cream coloured houses and fields full of violet autumn crocus.

Swallows darted around the car and at one point goats posed picturesquely on a rocky bluff waiting for me and my lens.

Lou stopped grumbling about the extra time this road had taken and agreed the views were worth it.

The italian influence is everywhere along this side of the adriatic and menus are awash with pizza and pasta dishes. Earlier this evening we decided we couldn’t leave kotor without making the effort to walk along the walls to the church high above the town.

I knew my knees couldn’t cope with the 1355 steps/1200 metres to the fortress on the very top. up to the church is considered halfway, enough to satisfy honour and curiosity!



The views were fabulous, of course, and photographic opportunities many.


All the climbing and negotiating the slippery steps of the descent did wonders for the appetite.


Wandering the alleys and plazas we decided pasta would be good and plumped for fruita de mare with glasses of local cold white wine. We were in front of st tryphon’s cathedral and watched people turn away as they realised they had to pay 2.50 euros to go in. They didn’t know what they were missing! (See an earlier post). Finally the chap shut up shop after one big guided group left. Soon after we were treated to the arrival of several more groups who each stood around their guide looking deeply uninterested in what was being said. At that time of night i’d rather be in a bar and some of them possibly would have preferred it too! Meanwhile, we finished off with ice cream for lou and fresh fruit for me.
Still nursing the delicate tum! tomorrow tirana and albania, assuming the car has wheels!

Kator or kotor? Cats are king here.

They slink under your cafe table, walk off in a hightailed huff if you try to take a picture and sunbathe in the middle of the busiest plazas, impervious to advancing ‘follow the flag’ tourist groups.

My locally handmade kotor magnet features two black cats (i couldn’t find two ginger ones) and the craftswoman who sold it to me told me the people of kotor love their cats. Not all of them take as kindly to the cruise ship tourists. We have seen at least one sign forbidding entry to cruise ship passengers. Tongue in cheek? Or meant? I asked the girl who sold me some postcards when did the season stop. November, she replied, all finish then. Towns like this; zadar, dubrovnik, padua, to name just the ones from this trip, all remind me of rocamadour, collonges la rouge etc. Stuffed with tourists, souvenir shops, handcrafts, restaurants and bars with normal life seemingly suspended for the summer.


It was good to walk around yesterday evening and find the place a lot less busy although the waiters and waitresses were eager to invite us in to their particular restaurant or bar. I was feeling a bit below par as my tummy decided three countries in as many days with added random eating experiences had been a little too much. I reclined upstairs in our room while lou dined in the square below, both of us serenaded by the restaurant’s guitarist. With the competing smells and music from several neighbouring restaurants i thought sleeping would be a problem but, no. When the restaurants shut, maybe around midnight, the whole town went quiet. We have good double glazing and aircon but like to sleep with at least one window open and we have three! Two facing the alleyway to the nearest church and the other over the restaurant parasols.

After a good night’s sleep my tummy had recovered and we ate a light breakfast under one of those parasols.

We passed on omelettes or pizza or sandwiches. Today has been devoted to exploring the many alleyways and churches within the old town. A brassband marched into one of the squares and blasted away until we could bear it no more.

The cathedral was a beautiful haven of peace and contemplation. Even the decor of creamy stonework and silver chandeliers helped cool the exterior chaos.


I wandered up to the gallery museum above and blew kisses to lou from the juliet balcony outside but he didn’t hear or see me!


Later, i couldn’t resist the cats museum. One euro entrance to a collection of seemingly hundreds of cat related postcards, magazines and documents. Bonkers but fascinating in its breadth.


While lou waited outside (as he does) he discovered the tree in that particular square had survived the 1667 earthquake and is still thriving today and is the chosen place for ‘cultural events’.

We lunched in yet another tiny plaza with a black cat in attendance and, afterwards, took a turn along the harbour front where i tasted and bought some sheep cheese from the indoor market as i felt guilty about taking photos of the chap’s stall.

Maybe in view of the tummy situation that wasn’t such a good idea?  🙂

Leaving dubrovnik the road climbs the hillside giving beautiful views down to the old town. We had to stop to capture it.

Blue sea, blue sky, a cruise liner waiting to dock (and fill the old town with tourists!) and bright sunshine to boot. There was a short moment of stunning cliff and seascape before the road turned inland and towards montenegro. The border crossing was quiet despite the warning from milo we would have a fifteen minute wait. The car documents were asked for and our passports stamped with pictures of a car.

Proof we arrived with ours and not bought it while in the country. a succession of small villages and then we were driving alongside the huge inland bay. I pored over the map and told lou we would be driving all around the edge of this until we reached kotor. But computer said no!

At one village the gps suddenly announced ‘turn right and take the ferry’. It took a while for the information to sink in and for me to inspect the map. Taking the ferry would save the long drive…so we took the ferry.

4,50 euros and a slick service, once a large car to our right had been yelled at to move forward so one last vehicle could be squeezed on. We counted at least three other ferries dotted about on the same route so business must be brisk.

Our second ferry of the trip! 🙂

Old age or overexcitement? I have been confusing things (1) italian autostrada signs are GREEN not blue like french autotoute ones,(2) two is 2 and four is 4. The first caused lou to shout at me and the second caused the big breakfast mixup. I had been very clear with our breakfast requests, written as instructed on a large yellow post-it and attached to the notice board. I even went over the details with the lovely eva, daughter of the household. When we presented ourselves for breakfast, breakfast there  was not! Eva’s mum came through from the family’s part of the house and told me we didn’t want breakfast, we had told her husband so the night before. I was a bit nonplussed as i remembered the conversation we had had with milo as he overtook us climbing up the hill and breakfast wasn’t mentioned. I insisted we had ordered it so she told us it would be made but there would be a wait. The door shut and we sat down at the table. The door opened and out came milo, looking fairly triumphant, i have to say. He was clutching my post-it and, there in the corner, in my handwriting, was ‘Room 4’. Oops, red face with egg on it! There followed rather a lot of to-ing and fro-ing through the ‘family’ door as milo laid the table and told us how he had tried to press my order on the american couple who were truly in room 4 and not in room 2 as we were! We did a lot of apologising and he did a lot of excusing and his wife did a lot of pan clattering. When breakfast arrived it was a feast. As almost no account had been taken of the, by now, infamous post-it. Lou’s order of one egg and bacon arrived as two eggs and bacon; my ‘bacon only’ came with about a packet of sliced cheese and two portions of tuna (pate?) nestled on lettuce leaves. Lovely juice, good coffee, croissants for lou, a huge mug with christmas snowmen on for my tea but my pancake with fruit was two thick pancakes sandwiched together with cream and forest fruits jam plus a generous topping of the same cream and jam combo, about half a jamjar’s worth. What to do but try and eat everything! I had a go but the cheese disappeared into a tissue in my bag, the tuna was tried but i can’t do tuna at breakfast and i left a good quarter of the pancakes as every one of my sensitive teeth was protesting at the unexpected sugar overload.

Milo, bless him, ignored the leftover food and gave us lots of advice about quiet border crossings, places to take good photos, to visit and an insistence we visit his friend’s restaurant near budva, along the coast from kotor. I asked to see his wife to apologise once more for the confusion and she was very gracious. Milo, an enthusiastic speaker as ever was, encouraged us to come again and to please go on booking.com and give them a ten. I reckon i will, i feel i owe it to them both. Those croissants had to be fetched from the baker at the bottom of that blessed hill!

Soooo frustrating but quite normal by now when we travel to find the much vaunted free wifi at some hotels is lamentably slow. Sorry, readers, if you are waiting with bated breath for our latest doings but matters beyond our control and all that! Off to albania tomorrow, if the car isn’t up on bricks as lou wryly commented. The free parking is a steep gravel patch on the bend of a scrubby road behind some scruffy sheds but with a chain looped across it.  We travel hopefully!

So far we have been driving through familiar territory as we came this way with the camper in 2010.

Not many changes apart from additional bits of motorway that defeated the gps and our five years out of date map. One very noticeable change is the complete absence of people sitting or standing at the entrance to every town and village along the coast road with pieces of cardboard in their hands offering rooms for rent.

It was a sight we had not seen in any other country we had driven through and made us realise that not booking ahead was not a great problem. I’ve been pondering possible reasons for this change; new laws, people better off? But i have decided it must be the internet. Once you have the internet in your home, there are endless possibilities to advertise and save yourself many boring hours beside the road waving your cardboard sign at passing vehicles. Booking.com may have changed the croatian landscape!

Meanwhile, for us, the landscape will be changing from familiar to utterly new….exciting!  🙂