The morning was dirty and damp as we crossed the mountains in Northern Greece on our way to the Albanian border on Monday, November 15 – very like the weather on our arrival by ferry to Greece all those weeks ago(although we had storms, floods and gorgeous sunshine in between). The first border official looked at our passports, asked if the car was ours and waved us on. At the next check, we handed in our passports again and were asked for car documents,..we looked blankly….car registration, he said. Now we should have brought the car registration documents with us but we forgot, so we just gave him the car tax disc and he seemed happy enough with that. Did we have Covid vaccine? We nodded but weren’t asked to provide any proof. So we just drove into Albania with clear blue skies, gained an hour and the currency changed to lek (about 122 lek to €1). Our first impressions were that it was very like Greece – and indeed in this part of the world, borders have changed often – but within a few kilometres, we had encountered several flocks of sheep and goats being shepherded along the narrow pot-holed roads (rarely saw farm animals in Greece), the other road users were friendly and waved to us as they barreled around blind bends and there were lots of dogs in the villages (Greece was full of cats) But the most surprising thing of all was the large number of Mercedes and BMW cars – apparently Albania can import them cheaply from Germany, plus they are strong enough to withstand the appalling roads.

Our car insurance didn’t cover travel outside the EU(most car insurances don’t) but our research had told us that we could buy it at the border. The problem was that we couldn’t see anywhere to buy it….and because we were outside the EU, we had no mobile data on our phones🙄 to check anything. So we drove to Ksamil, a seaside town about an hour and a half away,  found a wonderful cafe with WiFi (great baklava and much better coffee than Greece) and googled madly. Temporary car insurance could not be bought online as we had hoped, but was only available at the border. So we decided to sleep on it and found a place to stay….a large bedsit with kitchen near the beach for €15 a night. Ksamil was beautiful with gorgeous beaches -its on the Albanian Riviera – with several uninhabited islands just offshore but it had that forlorn feel of a seaside town out of season with lots of the restaurants and hotels boarded up although there were several new hotels being built and lots of painting and hedge clipping going on in preparation for next year. With the clocks having gone back an hour at the border, it was black-dark before 5 pm and the temperatures which were over 20 degrees during the day dropped to less than 10. Corfu is very close – a 30 minute ferry ride away – and some tourists get cheap flights to Corfu and come to Albania that way.

The following morning we headed back to the Greek border, a different border crossing this time, to try and buy car insurance. We had read stories online of police imposing hefty fines (or worse) on foreigners driving without insurance and of course there was the risk of accident especially as Albanians are notoriously erratic drivers _ the mountain road from the border was adorned with floral remembrances for the dead who had gone over the edge. On the way about 10 kilometres outside Ksamil, at an intersection we saw a police roadblock ahead. My heart was thumping as the police officer approached my side of the car – not because he was tall, dark-eyed, brown mustached and handsome (although he was.) I rolled down the window, the officer asked where we were from but then he asked where we were going. Tricky question! I just looked blankly, not wanting to say that we were driving without car insurance and were trying to buy it. He peeked at the jumbled back seat with camera, jackets, fold-up chairs and biscuit wrappers.  ‘Ah you go to Butrint, I think.'(Butrint is a National Park and has famous archaeological ruins.) I spluttered and nodded, yes. Butrint. The problem was that the road to Butrint was not the same as the one to the border and when Caoimhin tried to turn left, the very helpful police officer waved to us and made sure that we took the road to Butrint.  What could we do but continue on the ‘wrong’ road? But eventually after some meandering, we found ourselves on the road to the border.

At this border, we found a kiosk selling car insurance_ €49 euros for 15 days (minimum number of days). We needed the car registration documents to buy it but Aonghus, our son, had scanned them and sent them to us (Good man, Aonghus). So we now had a very official-looking insurance cert displayed on the car window of the Guzzler _ what a relief. I wouldn’t like to be making a claim with it but at least we could drive around without fear of being pulled over by the cops.

After all that excitement, there was one place we felt we should visit – Butrint, of course. We had been to lots of ruins and archaeological sites in Greece which were busy, very popular with tourists and policed by whistle-blowing women to ensure that rules were adhered to (no climbing, no deviation from the paths, no eating, no smoking, no dogs etc). This was completely different – and not because it wasn’t interesting. It was like a journey through the ages of history with Greek, Roman (Julius Caesar was here) and Venetian excavated ruins but it felt like nature was reclaiming it again with moss covering the stones, trees growing from some of the buildings, virtually no visitors and water from the surrounding lagoon seeping up underfoot because of changes in sea level and definitely no whistle blowers. Butrint was mentioned in Virgil’s Aenaid where Aeneas was given food on plates of gold. Even Caoimhin was impressed and his enthusiasm for archaeology sites was waning at this stage of our travels. (not more stones, he said…a lot)

Albania is a mountainous country so we drove inland to a little town called Petran in the Vjose valley, which was close to thermal pools and good hiking trails. On the way, we diverted to see charming Gjirokaster, a UNESCO world heritage site famous for its stone houses, fortress on the hill and well-preserved Ottoman buildings. We found ourselves having a tea/coffee outside an Irish pub but when I went inside to the loo, the toilets were designed as red phone boxes and there were huge Paddington bears arranged on some of the stools! The local specialty was rice balls seasoned with fresh mint and herbs and deep fried – which was cooked for us by a local called Mr McDonnell (see his apron in photo)

In Petran, we stayed in a small hotel in the central square called the Funky Hotel – we couldn’t resist the name – and although I’m not sure if it was really ‘funky’, it was clean, comfortable, really nicely decorated and cost €20 a night for the room and that included a substantial breakfast (eggs, cheese, pancakes, bread, juice, tea/coffee). We headed for the hills, driving along dirt tracks past stone houses that looked abandoned until we noticed wisps of smoke, to find the start of a looped trail around a glacial ridge. The area was wild, beautiful and part of the hike took us through woodland that was magnificent in its autumn finery. We had company on the walk – two dogs joined us from a little farmhouse, really good-natured animals who guided us along the proper track, running ahead and then waiting for us. They definitely deserved a share of our lunch (‘stolen’ from the big breakfast).

A soak in the Benja hot springs was called for – these are natural rock pools of warm water, out in the open air, surrounded by mountains, a gurgling river and waterfalls. It was so restorative immersing our goose-bumped skin in greeny-blue water with leaves falling into the pools from overhanging trees and steam rising into the cold air. Of course, there was the sulphur smell but we got used to that. It was totally undeveloped and free – the most difficult thing was finding them without signposts. Caoimhin took some fabulous photos – unfortunately I can’t show you any of them because his camera slid from a mossy rock into the healing waters and despite many attempts, all resuscitation efforts have failed to date.

We said our goodbyes to the manager of the Funky, a friendly elderly man with a belly and a flat cap who had very little English but loved to talk to us. And the Guzzler wouldn’t start – not a peep out of it. Caoimhin was opening the bonnet to have a look with the help of a young chap who was trying to get into our parking spot in the Square. The problem was that a connection to the battery had come loose – probably from the shaking on the dirt roads the previous day – maybe we should have had a Merc.

On the way to Tirana, the capitol city, we stopped for coffee in a little town off the beaten track, Levan. Have you ever tried to explain to someone – without words – what an Americano coffee is? Another customer who had a few words of English tried to help but as he didn’t know what an Americano was either, he confused things further. Everyone was in hysterics laughing by the time we got our Americanos …we really enjoyed that coffee and it showed how good-humoured most Albanians are. But then outside the cafe, the Guzzler wouldn’t start again and Caoimhin had to lift the bonnet and make the connection – at least seven locals waved us off…finally.

Tirana was a very lively buzzy city, probably because of all the caffeine that was running through the veins of the inhabitants. There were cafes everywhere, most of them packed with coffee drinkers. It doesn’t have beautiful buildings, a lot of the buildings are old style utilitarian concrete blocks but painted in vibrant colours and there are lots of parks, trees and great sculptures. Skanderbeg Square is the main piazza in the very centre of the city, a huge open space for concerts and events, mainly paved but also with grassy areas. On the sunny Saturday morning that we visited, the Culinary Dept of the University had set up tables there and were giving free offerings of cakes, bread and beer (and coffee) to everyone. Some buskers played music and a large group of cheerleaders practiced their moves in another section and skateboarders and cyclists whizzed past.

The countryside in Albania was littered with bunkers like concrete mushrooms or alien spaceships, we wondered what they were when we first noticed them…. they were everywhere Enver Howha, the former communist ruler from 1941 until his death in 1985, had 173,000 thousand of them built because of a paranoid fear of attack and invasion, an enterprise that almost bankrupt the country. One of these larger bunkers in the city has been converted into a history museum and what a brutal history – Albania was one of the most tightly controlled and closed counties in Europe until the fall of communism and any dissenters were imprisoned, executed or simply ‘disappeared’.

But there were no Covid concerns anywhere in Albania and this was most evident and really surprising in Tirana, a crowded city. We were probably the only people wearing masks and hand sanitizers were non existent. No one asked us to produce  a Covid cert anywhere _ in the last week in Greece, we had to continually show cert and on several occasions, the Covid cert details were checked against our passports. But hopefully , there won’t be an explosion of cases here but we’re eating outside and keeping our distance.

I googled Albania to get a few facts (instead of my usual waffle) and we were so surprised to read that Ireland is 2.4 times bigger than Albania – it feels a lot bigger than that but maybe that’s because of the variety of terrain from stunning beaches to mountain passes with river valleys and flat coastal plains – and it has a population of about 3 million. We are moving on to another border tomorrow – Montenegro. At the moment we don’t know anything about it either but if it is even half as interesting as Albania, it will be worthwhile. We would like to hike in the Accursed Mountains (also known as the Albanian Alps) which are just northeast of here in Shkoder, the town where we are spending our last Albanian night. The weather which had been a glorious sunny 23 degrees in Tirana for three days changed today to grey heavy rain with little visibility… so the Accursed Mountains will have to wait for another time……….if we dare.

I think and hope that we will return to Albania, the small country with the big heart and the fascinating past which is also light on the pocket.