Date arrived: 28th August 2023

Date Departed: 4th September 2023

Distance Travelled: 338KM

Average Cost: £49.18 *

*This cost includes money spent on transport and accommodation for a hiking trip into the accursed mountains, which was abandoned due to illness.

28th August 2023

We crossed the Albanian border on our minibus from Montenegro, shortly afterwards stopping at a roadside service station for a coffee. It was awesome to be re-introduced to Balkan coffee - both the nature of it, and the attitiude around it.

We arrived in Shkoder at lunch time to find a thriving city, with little suggestion of it's nominally Muslim nature but a few visible mosques. At a bright and sunny 35 degrees C, the weather was not holding to the threat of three solid days of epic thunderstorms we had been given. Not a bad thing!

We spent the afternoon getting bearings, grabbing some lunch, and walking down (and then up!) to the impressive ruins of Rozafa castle, high on a hill overlooking the lake, city, and surrounding mountains. The views were stunning.

We descended and briefly explored the footbridge across the river Buna, deciding to return the following day to explore further afield on bicycles, weather permitting. We returned to our apartment, picking up some groceries, beffore setting off in search of dinner. The result was a lovely pasta dish, served with a suprisingly inexpensive half-litre of wine.

A swift Gelato on the way home rounded out the day nicely before a well deserved sleep - punctuated by the ominous sounds of the promised thunder storm. It sounded, I thought, as if the gods were bringing out their wheelie bins.

29th August 2023

The epic storms of the previous night left a damp Shkoder under grey clouds, although the sun was clearly starting to filter through and the weather forecast was suggesting we had 8 hours before the rains returned. Discovering our apartment without running water, we realised this was a city wide problem following the storms. We sponge bathed with wet wipes as best we could, and set out to see if eateries were managing.

They were, and a fantastic and healthy Crepe and, of course, coffee, set the world to rights once more. The next step was to hire bicycles to explore the reportedly beautiful lake next us, which we managed to arrange at the second attempt, and for the princely cost of £4 each. Lock included - helmets not.

As the sun spoiled us with a pleasant, but not scorching performance, we set off on our rented steeds. A 25KM round trip along the south shore of the lake brought us, literally, to the end of the road, just shy of the old and now abandoned crossing point to Montenegro. We enjoyed the scenery, paddled off a handy jetty, and stopped on the way home for another fabulous balkan coffee. My bike lost it's front brake halfway out, resulting in a rather more sedate return ride, but that was no bad thing.

Returning the bikes, we made our way back to the apartment to develop some plans for the next few days. We decided to do the famout Theth to Valbone hike, which involved a ferry trip and a couple of nights in isolated mountain villages. We booked all of the tranport and accommodation for this trip, which all seemed fairly organised and seamless.

Many restaurants and cafes seemed to be without power that evening, so we settled down for an easy (and delicious) pizza close to our accommodation, before retiring for the night. Technology behaved itself, and we were able to successsfully stream an hour of Disney+ goodness to the TV in the apartment, before settling back and relaxing after another busy day.

30th August 2023

This day started well, with a late breakfast at the uber trendy "Cliche" cafe in town, followed by visits to some of Shkoders museums, includin the "Marubi" National Museum of Photography and the small but interesting Shkoder History Museum. We also visited the Muzeu i Maskave Veneziane, which is in reality a factory where they manufacture traditional carnival masks, which are mainly sold in Venice and, of course, Las Vegas.

Returning to the apartment found us both feeling a little ropey, and by 6PM we had both been sick. By 11 this was still occuring, and we were into full on D&V, not even able to hold down water. At this point we cancelled out 6AM pick-up the following morning, as there was no way we could do a three day hike in this state. We arranged to stay another night in the apartment, and took turns sleeping and running to the bathroom until the middle hours of the morning!

31st August 2023

Today, we slept. Able once more to stomach small amounts of water, we both dozed on and off throughout the day, only shifting from the apartment around 6PM to go and buy more water. We managed a croissant between us, and a slice of pizza each all day. By mid-afternoon we decided we needed to abandon the hiking trip completely, so we booked three nights in an apartment in Tirana, and just about managed to look up the bus times before falling asleep. I estimate that of the 30 hours between 2am on Thursday morning and 8am on Friday, we slept for 26 of them. 

1st September 2023

Feeling pretty ropey, we dragged ourselves out of bed and onto the service bus to Tirana... The two hour journey took three due to heavy traffic, but was otherwise quite straightforward - and good value at £3 and pence per ticket.

1st September 2023

Arriving in Tirana, a taxi from the bus station to our hotel was a necessity as we weren't up to  a long hike with packs. Our apartment was well situated next to the central Skanderbeg Square. Having unpacked and regained our breath for an hour, we set off out to get our bearings. 

First port of call - a small camera shop, with a view to replace the graduated filter that Julie left behind! Success, at a mere 15 Euros. We managed to eat a little bit of food, before visiting the aforementioned Skanderbeg square and the mandatory "Man on Horse" statue. This has changed a lot since Julie's last visit in 2014, when the huge paved open square that we discovered today used to be a busy roundabout! The changes in this city in the last 9 years are, apparently, incredible. I was wowed by some of the great architecture that is being built, with bright coloured, funky shaped hotels and skyscrapers competing to steal the eye of wanderers.

We also visited Tirana's Pyriamid, an old TV studio that was a dilapidated ruin in 2014, but has now almost completed its reincarnation as a super-funky, highly instagrammable piece of functional architecture. This city highlight will open next year as some kind of study centre, I understand. 

2nd September 2023

Still feeling exhausted due to illness and lack of food, we had a gentle day and stayed close to the apartment. We breakfasted at an American Cafe, the Stephen Centre, then visited the fascinating House of Leaves  museum, which was dedicated to the work of the communications division of the state secret police. 

We had a brief rest after this, and then came out once more in the late afternoon to visit Bunk'Art2, which is a museum and art installation built in the old communist Ministry of the Interior's Nuclear Bunker, under the centre of Tirana. Once again, this was fascinating and well worth a visit.

This brought us out into Skanderberg Square at Golden Hour, cueing some photography shenanigans for a bit, before trying to force ourselves to eat a remarkably good bowl of pasta.

3rd September 2023

Today's plan was a little more adventurous, with a trip out to the Northern outskirts of Tirana to visit the original Bunk'Art installation, and also to use the Dajti Ekspres Cable car to ascend to the 1000M+ mountains that overlook the city. We'd scoped out the bus stop we needed yesterday, so I went for a brief forage for breakfast (unidentified but tasty pastries, and coffee) and we made our way to the bus stop.

The bus was very crowded, and pretty hot, and with Julie still far from feeling right, the 40 minute trip was somewhat tortuous. We got there okay though, and for the princely sum of 40 Lek each (about 30 pence.) Walking through the long tunnel under the mountain that leads to the bunker is quite cool, and gives a good introduction. There's also quite a lovely wood that's sprung up around where the old fencing around the bunker was, which gives quite a strange feeling to this relic of a paranoid dynasty - a Dystopian past, as it were.

Bunk'Art

The communist government of Enver Hoxha was paranoid, and particularly of a chemical or Nuclear attack, so set out to build 220,000 bunkers to protect the populace and functions of government in such an event. They completed some 170,000 of these, most of which were very small, single pits beneath re-inforced concrete domes. Some, however, were much more substantial. Bunk'Art has been built in the restored nuclear bunker that was established for the Albanian Government to operate from, so is very much one of the latter. It's difficult to share the scale of this bunker, so I'll start with a picture of the original blueprint for it, which was declassified in 2014 when the installation was opened, and is on display inside.

The main tunnel is 220 metres long, and the 9 side tunnels vary from 50 to 75 metres in length. To use a familiar comparison, the plan above covers an area of just over two football pitches placed end-to-end. There are 165 rooms marked on these plans, some of which are over 8 metres long, not to mention a "theatre" like audience room, which itself is 30 x 20m. This place is vast.

The exhibition begins at the bottom right of the plan above, and you make your way long the main corridor, which itself descends through the mountain on 4 levels. Each of the first 3 "arms" are full of material, mainly  showcasing the history of modern Albania, and the rise and fall of the communist government that built this bunker. The main gathering hall is also open, but has been left as something of a reproduction of what it may have been like, had it ever been used.

The 4th "arm" conains a photo exhibition of some of the people who brought about the end of he communist regime by invading the various western embassies in 1991, shown as Children. It's a bit weird. The 5th "arm" is the end of the museum, meaning the three left-most arms are not visitable at this time.

All-in-all it's a stunning and throught provoking museum, and an incredible site to visit in-and-of itself, regardless of the exhibitions.

The Dajti Ekspres

From Bunk'Art, we went round the corner and up a hill to the Dajti Ekspres cable car station. The tunnel into Bunk'Art actually runs right under the cable car station! This 4.5KM long cable car climbs some 800 meters into the mountains to the north of Tirana, where it meets a purpose built hotel and leisure complex that is billed as the perfect family day out. The complex was... okay... and we managed to get a bowl of chicken soup at the restaurant there, which was pretty much what both mine and Julie's bodies were crying out for. The best bit, though, was the views over Tirana. Take a look for yourself!

4th September 2023

This was our last morning in Tirana, and with a 1PM bus booked, allowed us time to pack, have a leisurely breakfast, and hike the 3KM to the bus station at a steady pace. 3KM isn't far, but with two packs and low food intakefor a while, it certainly took it's toll! The bus was quiet and uneventful, and the scenery very impressive, particularly as we climbed up into the Montains on the eastern edge of Albania and caught our first glimpses of Lake Ohrid.

Passport control seemed to be at the highest point on the route; presumably the border runs along a ridge. This was also straightforward. No stamps, and onwards into another new country - North Macedonia!