The ferry from Crete reached Piraeus at about 5:30 am – about 45 minutes earlier than scheduled. I’d set my alarm for 5:15 so had to scramble to pack up my overnight things and take Lottie up on deck for a wee.
I managed to reach the car down in the bilges on deck 2 in the nick of time.
With such an early start, I made excellent progress driving back up through Greece – retracing my steps from 3 weeks earlier.
The motorway as far as Igoumenitsa was great. This time I counted the toll stations: there were 9 altogether.
As I left the motorway for the B-roads towards Albania, the scenery got more alpine. There was more roadkill, more potholes and signs for wild boar.
I reached the Greek-Albanian border post in 38 degree heat and queued for about 25 minutes.
I was a bit thrown when the border guard wanted to see my car registration document. Cue 5 mins panicking until I remembered I have my hard-fought-for Portuguese standard EU credit card type document that replaced my UK log book after importing my car into Portugal.
Once I showed them that, everything was fine. The border guards weren’t that friendly, but they definitely weren’t out to be nasty either.
I needn’t have wormed Lottie before leaving Greece. They were barely concerned about her or her passport.
It’s a shame the same didn’t apply to the self-appointed canine border guards: two strays rushed out of nowhere and attacked poor Lottie, luckily scaring her rather than hurting her.
One of the border guards came out to see them off but they followed the car for a while. Welcome to Albania!
Gjirokastër
Twenty minutes drive down a single-lane highway and a flock of goats later, I was at my hostel in Gjirokastër, which is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site due to its rare examples of Ottoman architecture.
The host was there to meet me and I paid in cash, which turned out to be standard procedure in Albania, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The cafes and bars accept euro as well as lekë. One hundred lekë are about 1 eur, which makes things easier.
My host said it was fine to leave things in the car parked on the road outside so I took him at his word. In fact Albania proved much safer than Rome in terms of car break-ins.
I popped to the local supermarket to get a few odds and ends. Only one surprise: a bottle that looked like milk in the chiller cabinet turned out to be fermented buttermilk.
With memories of the fraught border crossing fading, eastern inflected Albanian pop music playing and a few young backpackers around, I started to feel in the spirit.
I’d decided against booking a hostel at the top of the hill in the old town because the driving and parking looked too challenging.
The downside to that was that I had a steep 20 minute slog up to the top of the hill in the heat.
On the way I passed a war memorial.
The cute old town bazaar area at the top of the hill below the castle was definitely worth the effort. It was all cobbled streets with shops selling traditional-ish ware (aka tourist tat), bars and restaurants. All the houses are tiled with traditional stone slabs.
I found a bar with a cold mist machine and wifi and was soon cooling down and chatting to other visitors.
Albania is a bit inaccessible for most tourists, but it seems that a popular route is to fly to Corfu, get a ferry to the Greek mainland and then hire a car to drive to Albania.
I went to another hotel bar offering a good view over the new town below, dating from the communist period. It’s ringed by mountains with a few birds of prey hovering in the thermals.
I decided I couldn’t manage the climb up to the castle that evening in the heat, so went back down the hill to bed.
Ascent to the castle
Next morning, I felt energised enough to tackle the climb before it got too hot.
The road up to the old town and castle is cobbled in pink and grey bands. The pink bands are marble and slippery as ice, while the grey bands are slate-like with a good grip. Most of the ascent is quite gradual but the last bit up to the castle is very steep.
Honour satisfied and the castle visited, I packed up and was on my way by about 11.
Drive from Gjirokastër to Berat
From what I’d read in the Rough Guide and various blogs, it was fatal to take the most direct road route between Gjirokastër and Berat. Luckily, Google maps (my saved off-line version) seemed to suggest the sensible route, which makes a biggish detour to keep to the main “SH” highways.
The road started off by passing through a tourist area and national park, with loads of very popular eateries and panoramic stop-offs.
Most of the visitors seemed to be Albanians enjoying the sights of their own country.
Later on, the satnav led me onto the A2 motorway for a tantalising spell of normality, before returning to the single-lane highways for the last leg.
Driving in Albania
I learned to keep my wits about me: you often look up to see a car speeding toward you on the wrong side of the road, when the onus is on you to swerve and take evasive action rather than the other way round.
On roundabouts, cars entering from the right seem to have right of way, though I couldn’t swear to it.
Most people seem to be content to plod along at a safe pace. But all bets are off if you encounter a speed merchant, invariably driving a Mercedes of varying vintage, or an elderly eccentric (possibly drunk) driving a rusty old wreck.
At its best, driving in Albania is reminiscent of the pre-motorway era in the UK, when everyone took A-roads and enjoyed driving off the beaten track through beautiful countryside.
At worst, it’s downright scary and unpredictable. The following is an excerpt from the UK Government website:
Dangers of driving in Albania
Driving can be very hazardous and often aggressive and erratic. Deaths from road traffic accidents are amongst the highest in Europe. Police have taken some measures to decrease the number of accidents.
Minor traffic disputes can quickly escalate, especially as some motorists could be armed. Avoid reacting to provocative behaviour by other road users.
If you are involved in a traffic accident, even a minor one, remain at the scene until the police arrive. This will usually happen quite quickly in built-up areas. Failing to wait could result in charges under the Albanian Penal Code and you could get a fine.
There are a lot of roundabouts, some with striking monuments or artworks. For example, one roundabout outside Berat sports an entire gutted plane while another in the north is populated by howling wolves that are floodlit at night.
Albanians are also constantly blowing their horns, but usually as a greeting to friends and acquaintances rather than as a warning.
I found many blogs about driving in Albania, this post on the Bea Adventurous blog is just one example.
Berat
I eventually arrived in Berat, where I’d booked a night at the swishy 5-star Hotel Colombo for the princely sum of GBP 45.
Berat, another Ottoman town and UNESCO world heritage site, is known as the Town of a Thousand Windows.
It was very hot again, so I stopped off at a restaurant and ordered the tasting menu of local specialities, despite having promised myself I wouldn’t touch another morsel of filo pastry.
A dauntingly large platter arrived and I valiantly tried a bit of each dish.
I saw another Lagotto in Berat. In my experience, owning a Lagotto is like owning a Mazda Bongo camper van. They’re both quite rare and distinctive so fellow owners tend to acknowledge one another on the street. The Bongo Owners Club even had a secret sign…
I was feeling hot, tired and stuffed by then, so retired to Hotel Colombo.
Another day, another hilltop castle
The following day, I got up early to trek up to the castle before breakfast.
At the castle, some old column fragments and even the marble used as flooring material reminded me of the Roman spolia that are a common sight in Capena, i.e. stones taken from an old structure (Roman in this case) and repurposed for new construction.
Then it only remained to trundle back down the hill, have breakfast, pack up and move on.
Cobo winery
I stopped off at the green and inviting Cobo winery on the road just outside Berat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t partake of the very tempting wine tasting on offer as I was driving, so had to be content with buying a couple of bottles to take home.
As the road headed north towards the more built-up industrial areas and Tirana, the traffic slowed to a virtual crawl.
The only light relief was stopping for petrol and getting served by a chatty drunk pump attendant. It was a cash transaction and I wasn’t sure how much it cost so I gave the drunk a handful of notes. He looked at them, shrugged happily and said what I interpreted as “That’ll do.”
A1 motorway
After what seemed like hours, to my surprise we came to a brand new motorway, the A1, which must surely be a flagship of the Albanian transport system.
As I approached the toll booth, I braced myself for the usual problems of driving a right-hand drive car/paying by cash or card. In the event, I pulled over as far to the left as I could, wound down the window and craned over to see what was needed. A stunning Albanian girl stuck her head out of the window and beamed “it’s free!”
I have no idea if it was just free for foreign cars. If it was for everyone, there didn’t seem much point in having manned toll booths. Anyway, that was a technicality. Driving on a proper road infected everyone with the same mood of euphoria.
The speed merchants in Mercedes shot off like greyhounds out of a trap while all the drunk, elderly eccentric types in rustbuckets wove off uncertainly. A good proportion of them were stranded on the hard shoulder before too long.
It all came to a juddering halt far too soon as the motorway unceremoniously reverted to two single carriageways without any perceptible warning.
Luckily we were all well-schooled in the art of paying attention and swerving so no-one came to any harm.
Shkodër
Then came a few more hours of grindingly slow driving as we left the industrial part and entered a more touristy region of small towns interspersed with lakes.
Judging by the number of roadside refreshment places (some so blingy and kitsch they wouldn’t have looked out of place in Vegas), the Albanians are resigned to the slow-moving traffic and embrace the opportunity to stop off by the wayside for entertainment.
Eventually I reached Hotel Blini, my destination for the night. To my consternation, I spotted another hilltop castle.
This time I decided to spare myself the climb and enjoy the local delicacies on offer at the hotel restaurant instead.
In the evening I walked Lottie along a very pleasant pedestrian avenue of cafés and restaurants. Everyone was riding bikes and a makeshift pigeon loft had been put up opposite one café – maybe a pigeon-fanciers club?
After a good might’s sleep, I had a delicious breakfast and set off for the long drive through Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Sarajevo with little idea of what was in store…
