My eleven hour train ride from Naples turned out to be just the rest I needed, and it rained most of the way, so it was a good day to avoid that. Finally around 7:30pm I arrived in Palermo in Sicily and found my hotel for the night, slept, and then hit the streets first thing in the morning. Just a little sidenote, Sicily has what has got to be one of the craziest flags in the world. The three…
It wasn’t a very long drive to Gjirokaster, but actually being allowed into the city was quite a challenge. The roads are all cobblestoned and narrow and steep. I took the most logical route to my hotel, but got turned around by the police. So I tried another way up, but all the roads were pedestrian only, so no dice. Between the pedestrian only sections and a bunch of construction going on, I just parked down the hill in a…
My drive from Vlore to Sarande was about eighty miles of just unbelievably scenic coastline. Mountains stretching up on one side, the Adriatic Sea extending out on the other, punctuated by the occasional beach resort village, and zipping around the twisting road like an Albanian racecar driver grinning all the way. Fantastic! On the way I stopped at Himare to visit what was described as a castle, but was more of an ancient hilltop village. I walked a lot of…
It was a very long travel day from Durres, but only because I made so many detours. I like having a car and being able to cram my “day trips” into my travel days. I covered Bashtove and Apollonia in the last post, but I made one other stop on my way south before reaching Vlore, Byllis. Byllis was another Illyrian city built in the 3rd or 4th century BC. It also fell into Roman hands and later Byzantines. There’s…
After all the hiking and jaw dropping scenery in the Albanian Alps, the last couple of days have seemed kind of sedate. I left Shkoder early on a bus bound for the capital city, Tirana. The bus pulled in and the bus right next to us was leaving for my destination in ten minutes. I don’t think my feet even had a chance to touch the pavement in Tirana it was so fast. Anyway, I’m now in the port town…
I said goodbye to Macedonia early and hopped on a bus for one of the only fully open countries on earth, Albania. My bus took me as far as the capital, Tirana, then I immediately jumped on another bus to Shkoder. Tirana is where I’ll end my adventure, so we’ll get to that later. Shkoder is a really pleasant city in the northwest of the country and the jumping off point for one of the premier outdoor excursions in the…
