Another furgon trip. This time to Berat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They are trying to preserve the Ottoman style houses, white walls, tiled rooves. Decided we could probably see what we wanted to in one afternoon, it is a small town. Took some photos of the typical houses, then walked up to the castle, approximately 1 km straight up! Had to watch your feet all the time as the road is all uneven limestone and slate rock. There is still a small community living within the old castle walls. An amazing old, but derelict mosque, must have been impressive in its day. A bit more of a wander to look back at the town from the other side of the river and that was about it. Early start to Sarande the next morning.
Yet another furgon trip, but this time 6 hours (!) and incredibly the roads were worse than our previous trips. I had quite a bit of time to look back over our Albanian experiences and made a few notes on quirks and foibles of the country:
Furgons- a great system, they seem to start off with just 2 or 3 people, then random stops to pick up parcels and people along the way, and they are full in no time. The odd box that 'clucks' when people get on. Not sure about WOF's. Informal ticket pricing.
People in the fields - still very manual labour. Hand scything the grass for hay, then raking it up into heaps and bundling it when dry. Rows of market gardens being manually hoed. Donkeys struggling along with huge loads of hay and other produce.
Roading - sometimes seems like one giant pothole ocasionally connected by some seal! Not all like that, but a high percentage of time is spent zig zagging around all the holes and bumps. Not unusual to see cars approaching on your side of the road, only to weave back at the last moment after dodging a hole.
I was trying to think of a road back home to compare it to and the closest I could think of was from Pataua South gate over the sandy road to Frogtown, except the roads I'm talking about here are state highways that have been sealed, not unsealed beach roads. There is an election coming up soon so apparently that means there should be a few roading projects completed soon. Roads close in to the bigger towns are usually okay.
Apparently unfinished houses as you drive along. Pieces of steel sticking out of a flat roof and 1 or 2 storeys of building. There is often a stuffed toy hanging off the steelwork and sometimes a bunch of garlic as well... I've read that they build them a storey at a time as they can afford it, and the stuffed toys are meant to be a good luck charm, I guess the garlic is just for good measure.
Supposedly the poorest country in Europe, but every second car is a Mercedes or similar(not exaggerating!)This probably reflects the flood of cars that came in from Italy and Germany after communist rule finished, but still seems rather incongruous to see so many M Benz, BMW's and VW sedans being driven when there is so much subsistence living.
Anyway, we survived the 6 hour trip with one food / toilet stop, and then another stop at a waterfall so everyone could fill their bottles with lovely cold fresh water out of a pottery spout on the side of the road.
Sarande appears to be trying to turn itself into the Albanian Riviera. There is just a mind boggling number of hotels and apartments in the throes of construction, to add to the hillsides of them that are already there. Not sure who is investing all the money in the development (my guess is Russians, they have been buying up the coast in Montenegro so maybe are carrying on down here too), but you have to wonder how it will all be sustained, or whether the bubble will burst and leave a lot of people out of pocket. Looking at some of the construction sites as we wander around, there isn't a lot of health and safety awareness round these parts and sometimes you wonder if some of the buildings are going to stay upright. In fact after speculating about this on the first day we were here, we did drive past several partially constructed apartments / hotels (?) that had fallen sideways or imploded somehow, so our speculation was unfortunately close to the mark.
Caught the bus to Butrint, another World Heritage site 18 kms from Sarande. They only started excavating in the late 1920's, but there are an amazing number of Greek, Roman and Ottoman ruins from tne 4th century BC onwards which are really accessible and visitor friendly. We wound up with heaps of photos, you couldn't resist snapping them continually. I think we struck it lucky on our visit, only saw about four other couples in the time we were wanderig around. Today, Saturday, we have seen several tour buses heading that way.
We have changed our plans a little and are now heading down to Athens, Sparta, and out to a Greek island for a few days. Then we will head back up and carry on with Macedonia, Turkey etc.
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