ALBANIA
I was a little afraid of the roads, the possible thefts and in short...boh!
These poor countries are mistreated by the media from which one expects who knows what dangers and instead it is just an absurd paranoia.
In fact the first scenes were not very reassuring because I saw poor houses , dirt around, people in a bit of a bad situation and then shortly after here's the surprise!
I arrive in Shkoder, a beautiful, elegant city, with beautiful buildings, squares with monuments and parks, luxury hotels and a riot of banks westerners.
Then a beautiful pedestrian street with finely decorated and pastel-coloured houses.
The Albanians are very kind and almost everyone speaks and understands Italian since they watch our TV. Thank goodness because I know little about this country and I don't know a word of their language. Even the currency was unknown to me: the lek which has an exchange rate of around 138 for 1 euro.
I made a bit of a mess at the ATM by asking for too much money and in fact they refused to pay me. Then I cashed 25,000 LEK around 180 euros and I also changed 50 euros against 7,000 LEK thinking I had little. Now it will be a problem to spend it all because in Tirana I found a good hotel in the center for 20 euros and I ate a mixed grill with loads of meat, a salad, a large beer and grappa: all for less than 5 euros!
Tirana at the entrance is a bit messy with a lot of traffic, but perhaps because I arrived during rush hour when everyone leaves the offices or factories.
Fortunately I saw the sign of a hotel that he also gave me a parking space for my Fiat Panda which I had just washed along the motorway, intrigued by the many car washes and the many petrol stations, practically one every km!
I spent 1.50 euros for a complete wash , so I gave a good tip to the guy who polished it from top to bottom.
In the center there is Skandenberg square, the Albanian hero who defended the Illyrian people from the Turks and then around there are large avenues and parks.
There are hundreds of boutiques with rich clothes from our designers and other more sporty ones . Nothing is missing, in fact there is too much stuff and the Albanians here are well placed, dressed like us but more relaxed and with lots of cell phones that they use continuously.
In short, well-being has arrived here too, as in the rest from Eastern Europe which never fails to surprise me country after country.
If it weren't for the fact that they have low wages and salaries, I don't see why they should come and live with us!
There are incredible, very colorful buildings , with beautiful terraces and beautiful girls, mostly brunettes, but there are also blondes.
They are Illyrians, a strange race that has reached Istria so I too should be partly Illyrian.
I think I'll spend a nice week here also because yesterday's rain that haunted me all day has ended here and it's quite hot, in fact I'm in a t-shirt and I'm warm while in Montenegro it was cold in the evening executioner.
Tomorrow I'm going to Durazzo and then maybe I'll visit the interior and down to Greece.
We'll see! The city near my mirage hotel is Tepelene, famous for its mineral water, in fact at the edges of the road various streams drain, sometimes channeled by pipes from the surrounding hill and there are collection areas complete with fountains and plastic bottles available !
Fortunately there is the motorway to Girocastro: finally! So I get there in a couple of hours and am amazed by the beauty of this other city protected by UNESCO.
Its fortune is due to the fact that it was the birthplace of the communist dictator Hoxha, so it was particularly favored .
It's a shame that UNESCO protects these cities only in name but without sending the necessary funds for their restoration. At least this is the version given to me by the Albanians. There is a sign from the Albanian government citing various local laws protecting the country's historical and artistic sites, but no action is seen. It's a shame because Berat and Girocastro are true jewels to be preserved and valorised.
I see a car wash along the road and I take the opportunity to remove the mud collected the previous day. Then, going along an uphill road, I arrive at the old city and find a paid car park. I set off on foot to the citadel protected by high walls, with an internal castle which houses a weapons museum, basically a series of impressive cannons which were probably used in the last war.
Gjirokaster means city of silver and is also nicknamed the city of a thousand steps and was already important in the Middle Ages and then after a period of decline it became important thanks to Alì Pasha of Tepelene who enlarged and strengthened it.
There is also a small church with the tombs of two important figures for a more tolerant branch of the Muslim religion, called bakshemi, whose capital today is Tirana.
In the external square however there is the wreckage of an American fighter plane that landed nearby 50 years ago due to failure problems. The view from the walls is impressive: you can see many surrounding hills with old white houses which are often made up of two twin towers separated by a lower terraced part.
After leaving the citadel I set off towards the Zekate house museum and I arrive there after a long walk, entering the garden of a private house which closes access to the historic house. Unfortunately it is closed and so I cannot visit it. On the other hand, further down I see the courtyard of a middle school and I meet many students in class and some outside. Here too they use to deface the external walls with writings of all kinds, but in block letters.
Then returning towards the car park I encounter an ancient mosque, an open-air theater and a small central street with various tourist shops selling mainly tablecloths embroidered by hand, given that embroidery is the local specialty together with the typical white cheese.
It's a shame that this city, like Berat, is also rather neglected and that many old houses are abandoned given that their recovery must be quite expensive.
Leaving Girocastro I take an uphill road that takes me to a spectacular pass and along the way I encounter: an area of red cliffs, perhaps clayey earth that the wind has shaped into those strange shapes that contrast with the surrounding greenery, a canal that runs at the edge of the road and which seems to overflow at any moment, a strange, perhaps artificial lake which I glimpsed in the distance and which is perhaps the famous source of the blue eye because the difference in color of the water recalls the iris of one eye. Unfortunately I discovered this news later and was unable to take advantage of his visit.
After many hairpin bends down from the pass, luckily the weather was good, otherwise I would have had big problems, I arrived in the pleasant Sarande, a city on the coast ionic. It has a series of very high houses that climb the hill and along the very long seafront while the lower part has a pleasant seaside promenade, a pedestrian area, with a small marina and many bars and restaurants with sea views. I had lunch in one of these with pizza and ice cream dessert in a glass with mascarpone cheese and hazelnut seeds. I relaxed for a couple of hours, giving up the visit to the Jewish synagogue which is the only tourist attraction in the place, but I reserved the right to vent my artistic thirst in the next destination: Butrint.
My hope of having finished with the bad roads was soon dashed.
After leaving Sarande I soon realized that the road was almost coastal after some normal and asphalted sections, surrounded by buildings, hotels and towns under construction in a massive and impressive way, at a certain point it becomes a wide road under construction, with difficult passages and at a certain point there was so much mud, after so many potholes and gravel without asphalt, that you risked getting stuck. Furthermore, in a passage of that type I hit the floor of the car and I had a shock thinking about the possible damage. Luckily, after a quick check I was sure that I had only taken a small hit without any damage. After a couple of hours I finally arrived at the most important archaeological site in the country, about 20 km from Sarande and a few km from the border with Greece.
Practically in front of Butrint there is the Greek island of Corfu from on one side and on the other canals and salt water lakes.
At the entrance to the site, having paid the most expensive ticket paid so far in Albania (5 euros) I accept the guided tour with a thirty-year-old Albanian, a scholar of history and well-spoken Italian to whom I will eventually give 1,000 lek, that is 7 euros.
Butrint was a Greek colony (dry stone walls), Roman (mortar walls), Byzantine (basilica and baptistery) and then Venetian (present tower).
In the 1930s an Italian archaeologist discovered it and brought to light and died there a few years later of malaria. He is the local hero but not even a plaque to remember him and even I have forgotten his name, poor guy!
Today there is an English foundation that protects the site, also beautiful from the point of view of the surrounding landscape within an extensive national park.
In Butrint there was an important water source and this was the reason why the Greek colonists settled there . The Romans then built an aqueduct bridge which was later destroyed. In the lower part you can admire the remains of an important Greek theater with 2,500 seats, then the baths with very rich columns and mosaics which however cannot be admired as they have been covered with sand for protection. The Albanian dictator had a wall built with pieces obtained from the site where ancient Greek writings can be read. There are the remains of a baptistery with other covered mosaics and then those of a Christian basilica. There are high walls and a city gate with a relief representing the symbolic figure of a lion eating a bull. There is a well with a water source that was considered miraculous for healing and even conception. Butrint was in fact a site considered important for the followers of Aesculapius.
In the acropolis above the view extends across the entire surrounding green region rich in water, with a canal that connects the lake near the Strait of Corfu. You can see an almost marshy area on one side and a rich forest on the other. Above a low column there is a very beautiful copy of the head of a Greek woman or an ephebe and then an interesting archaeological museum with various finds found on the site.
Immediately outside the site, next to a Venetian tower there is a canal that you have to cross on board a raft which covers the distance in about ten minutes.
After boarding the Panda I get angry with a boy who risks getting hurt because he keeps his feet close to the ramp. So we have a little spat, but then we make friends and to make up for the scolding I offer him a ride. I cannot accommodate his two friends because the rear seats are occupied by camping material that I only used in Cesena when I participated in Beppe Grillo's Woodstock rally.
Toni is the name of the 27 year old who lives and works in Tirana with family and girlfriend.
After a few km we end up in the last Albanian town before the Greek border, Konispoll on a high hill. A few houses, a few shops and a couple of bars and restaurants. I find a private room for 15 euros from the owner of the central shop while the boys go to stay at the local hotel.
We meet in the evening for dinner in the only restaurant and after a couple of beers the reasons for their presence emerge on site: at night they want to cross the border as illegal immigrants to go to work in Athens. Albanians and Bosnians are the only Balkans whose entry into the European Community is currently banned unless a visa is difficult to obtain. The low Albanian salaries allow you to survive but not to save and start a family, so many young people choose to cross the border and look for some precarious work in Greece. However, they tell me that the passage will be difficult because Albanian plainclothes policemen have warned them that there are various problems perhaps connected to the passage of drug shipments.
In the end, however, after a series of phone calls with relatives and friends, the three decide to try anyway and they give me an appointment for the next morning in the first Greek town after the border.
In the morning around 8.30 I try to spend the last remaining leks after having offered dinner to the Albanian boys, buying two kg of Albanian cheese , a flip-up umbrella and a full tank of fuel. Then I cross the border without problems and arrive on the other side on a finally western road without problems. Unfortunately I can't find RAI the town for the appointment and I continue until I reach Igoumenitsa in about half an hour by road. I take a walk around the beautiful town and then I receive a cell phone call from friends asking me to come and pick them up in Ragio, this was the name of the town in Greek while Rai must have been the Albanian name.
I had managed to move somehow the camping tools and so I was able to host the three boys up to Igoumenitsa not without some worries because along the way I had twice encountered a police vehicle that was looking for illegal immigrants. Luckily everything went well. The boys thanked me so much because it would have been very difficult for them to get to Igoumenitsa after walking for 4 hours in the rain and getting completely dirty with mud. Luckily they had brought a change of clothes and had thrown away the dirty ones. Once Toni and his friends left, I took a long walk in the beautiful pedestrian street that runs along the entire bay. The weather had improved luckily after so much water the sun had come out and also the rainbow. Along the way I met a nice retired Greek who told me about his life on Lake Constance in Switzerland and the local situation, with many Albanians crossing the border and of which I had direct experience. Then I had dinner in a nice little restaurant along the sea with sardines, Greek salad, white Retsina wine and ouzò for a digestive. With 110 euros I bought passage on the excellent Igoumenitsa-Ancona ferry, with a 4-seater sleeping cabin, but there were only two of us, the other a Macedonian pensioner who was going to visit his son who lives in Neuchatel in Switzerland.
The crossing lasted a good 15 hours and we left at 11pm and arrived at 2pm in Ancona from where I continued on the motorway to Milan arriving late in the evening in the city with an almost winter climate, sic!
What can I say, nice trip, 3,500 km in total, spent around 1,100 euros for 23 days of which 8 in Trieste, 1 in Slovenia, 7 in Croatia, 2 in Montenegro, 4 in Albania and the last in Greece.
Beautiful experience with Beppe Grillo, the meeting with many relatives and friends from Trieste, Capodistria, Buzet was moving and nice, and then the tour of my Istria (I am 100% Istrian even though I have lived most of my life in Trieste and for 17 years in Lombardy ) and the splendid Dalmatian coast with its beautiful sea, its fantastic white stone art cities, the beautiful Montenegro with the bay of Kotor and then this strange and interesting country that is Albania, not as beautiful as Croatia but with very nice, hospitable, kind people with a big heart, all things that are lost with the arrival of money, alas!
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