ABroad

#domore

Sunday, 27 November 2016

Berat - Albania

10:03:00 1 comment
We get off a metro bus at a bus station a few km outside of Tirana's city centre and get hassled by taxi drivers as soon as we step off the bus - "Nah mate, nah mate we're here to catch bus" - this is typical of the Balkan's. We cross a busy highway via the pedestrian crossing and about a dozen blokes are across the road "Berat, Berat" "Shkoder, Shkoder" etc... we are hesitant but I say yeh we want to go to Berat. The bloke grabs Amy's bag and charges through a crowd and heading past a heap of buses with different destinations displayed in their front window. He takes us to a bus with a Berat sign, helps us load our bags under the bus and points to the door suggesting we get on - righto... 
A few other passengers wander on, along with a few the bloke keeps bring to the bus. No need to go to the bus station to buy a ticket it seems... 

Its around 10am and eventually we begin to leave the bus station, the little sprooker bloke hangs out the middle door of the bus "Berat, Berat" as we leave the station and start to drive along the highway at walking pace. This continues for about 1km up the road. A couple of passengers sort of run along the side of the slow moving bus and jump in while old mate keeps singing out "Berat".

We caught this from the bus window - a bit of home butchery just on the side of the highway.

Known as the town with 1000 windows, Berat is a world heritage listed old city in south-central Albania. We were only planning a couple of days at a time at this stage, and after speaking to a few of the people at the hostel in Tirana, we decided Berat would be a good place to head next as we work our way north-east to Romania.

 We didn't book a hostel, just thought we'd rock up to Beret Backpackers. Lucky we weren't a couple of days later because it shuts over winter! We were the only ones there other then the Albanian desk keeper who welcomed us with a Rakjia shot and some information about the town, it was mid-arvo so we headed out for a little look and some tucker.
The 1000 windows, heritage listed old town. Berat itself is pretty big at 60,000 people.
Semi-traditional kebab sandwich for lunch. Had to get something quick and easy for lunch. Albanian tucker is definitely greek inspired. 


$3AUD hair cut from old mate barber - we conversed via hand signals, smiling and the thumbs up. Classic.
'panic' mid-cut...
Berat Castle
Burnt down by the Romans in 200BC, rebuilt during the 6th century by the Byzantine's and used many years later, the still-standing fortifications and cultural monuments inside make for a pleasant mornings adventure. She's a pretty steep walk to reach the castle but it gives ripper views of the surrounding housing and area. Entry to the castle was - $2AUD. 
Looking over the river to the smaller section of the old town - our hostel was over this side. During winter this area only sees 10min of sun per day since its blocked from the mountain behind.
There are plenty of walls to climb and explore.
Bought a couple of mandarins from this bloke inside the castle. BEST MANDARINES EVER! There seems to be plenty of residents still living inside the castle walls, souvenirs, coffee and bits and pieces.
Views from the walls of the old fortified walls, the Holy Trinity church and entrance to the citadel of Berat on the left.
Farmland and plantations of fruit trees etc. as far as the eye can see. Hard to make out in the photo but those hill are lined with planted trees of some sort, and its like that in every direction!!
13th century Byzantine church of the Holy Trinity.
Still using the donkey in Albania.
Later in the arvo (maybe like 4pm since the suns is starting to set early...) we walked up the hill behind the hostel to get another view of the castle and town, to fill in a couple of hours an get active. 



FYI Albanian sheep.


Sun setting on some of the mountains outside the city.
Two nights was ok in Berat before heading to Macedonia. If we'd added an extra night to our visit we would've hit up a local winery and maybe looked to get onto a hike, but we were keen to keep on moving. The Hostel was pretty cold but comfortable, due to its position it only sees a few hours of daylight at this time of year... We had plenty of rugs and the hostel gave us a couple of electric oil heaters which did the job.

The second night at the hostel a couple of other randoms rolled in off the street - two solo traveling Aussies, and a bloke from Hong Kong. Along with us and two Polish women who had stayed the night before and the Albanian host it made for a pretty interesting few of hours. We all got stuck into a couple of beers and Rakjia supplied by the Hostel. What I most enjoyed about this was how we were all talking about our trips and experiences, hearing about what people had seen, like and disliked... Its pretty cool that other then us four Australians, english was the other travellers second language but english brought us all together for a yarn and a laugh.

Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Tirana - Albania

01:14:00 No comments
Tirana's main pedestrian street, heaving with coffee shops and old locals dressed in their suits drinking coffee. The most common dress code for men (aged 40-80) throughout Albania is the woollen slacks and tan blazer.
Instantly after crossing the border into Albania there was a notable difference compared to Montenegro.... Along the highway there were a lot of large houses on big blocks, some really nice but the majority of them looked unfinished. They'd complete maybe the bottom floor and looked as though people were living in that - but levels above were just concrete shells. Also the traffic was chaos, there were a lot of people riding bikes along the highway, the odd horse and cart and broken down cars. The speed limit was slow and the bus would randomly stop at the side of the road to pick up or drop off passengers, there weren't many allocated bus stops. At one stage the bus driver even stopped to get himself some fish at a roadside market. Another noticeable thing was the amount of petrol stations dotted along each side of the road seemed strange...

We were heading for the Capital Tirana where we'd booked - Trip'n Hostel. The border crossing out of Montenegro was our slowest yet. The bus ride was typical of our Balkan experience but on the expensive side at 30 Euro's each.

The bus dropped us off randomly on the side of a street near the centre of Tirana, a handful of us got off scratching our heads thinking we would have been dropped at a station - never mind we kitted up and set foot in direction to our hostel which was a bit over a km walk. Considering the time of year the hostel was chokers, in our 12 bed dorm I think one bed may have been empty - which made for a rough night sleep. 

 Our main day in Tirana was jam packed - a cooked breakfast was supplied (win) and served up to you like at a restaurant, then a walking tour, lunch then a couple of other touristy adventures.
Flea market outside the gate of the Hostel.
Couple'a Nokia's!
White jock washing day by the looks.
On route to the walking tour I thought I should get some cash out - dropped 5000lek on me when I thought it might have been split by 1000$ bills. The equivalent of $52.60AUD and not idea for tipping the walking tour guide..
Meeting place of the walking tour, a massive communist building and mosaic which is now the National Historical Museum. It was a pretty impressive building! We didn't get a chance to go there and maybe if we had an extra day we would have.
Old bridge - built a couple of hundred years ago to get across the river, during communist periods they blocked off this section of river to allow for building developments. 
"The Pyramid of Tirana" this was build as a memory to the founding communist leader Enver Hoxha formally as a Museum to serve as his legacy - designed by his daughter and son in law. After the demise of the communist state it was used as an conference centre, then NATO in 1999, then a TV station. Now however it is well and truly abandoned and there have been petitions to destroy it. Its pretty sketchy but easily climbable, just a bit slippery coming down :/ At the time of completion it was said to be the most expensive structure ever built in Albania.
The Peace Bell for anyone to ring, a couple of the chaps on our tour had a crack, it represents a memorial to the Children of Shkodra. The metal for the bell came from thousands of bullet cartridges fired off during the 1990's.
A display of one of the 170,000 bunkers built around the country - the belief was that if the Germans or US attacked Albania they would be safe and be able to defend their country via these bunkers. Generally 3 or so bunkers were build in one area and were connected via tunnels.
A fragment of the actual Berlin Wall.
Couple of blokes dressed in their water proofs adjusting the height of the fountains.
After the walking tour we had some lunch with a couple of the blokes we'd met from the hostel at a traditional Albanian place. It featured dishes such as sheep liver, sheep inner and sheep's intestine...
ODA - It was delicious, filling and affordable, this is only half of what we actually ate - $8AUDpp
Following lunch we ventured out to a massive nuclear bunker which was built under the instruction of the Communist leader Enver Hoxha in the 70's. It has now been put to cultural use to tell the story of the times under the dictators rule, and Albanian history prior to becoming a Communist state. We caught a metro bus out to the site followed by a short walk.
Tunnel under a road leading to Hoxha's bunker complex.
The entrance of the five-story bunker is pretty under whelming. Entry into the bunker was 5.20AUD per person which was pretty reasonable I think.
Its a pretty serious structure, there were two of these doors to get through to get into the first main hallway of the bunker. Check out the thickness of that door!
This treadly was used for stress testing soldiers.
The sizeable concert hall inside the bunker! A pretty comfortable space. Used for jazz concerts now.
Just above the Bunker (400ish metre walk up a reasonably steep hill) is the start of Tirana's cable car up to Mount Dajti. It works out well having the two attractions next to each other, you can sort of kill two birds with one stone. We took the ride to catch the sunset, have a beer at the Panorama Lookout and to reflect on the day with a couple of Americans from the hostel we had been hanging out with all day.


From this view point you watch the sunset over the Adriatic which is only about 40km away as the crow fly's. All day we'd carried around our coats thinking it would have been chilly, we were thankful to have them once the sun had gone down - she's starting to get bloody cold.
We detoured back from a $4.50AUD Gyros and Heineken for dinner and headed out on the town to climb the Pyramid and visit the "sky bar" - also to catch some of the night life of Tirana.  This is a photo looking over the city centre from the Pyramid.
Sheep's heads and chickens on the rotisserie outside a restaurant on our way back to the Hostel.
It was a pretty quick trip at Tirana just the two nights before moving on. We felt that was enough but well worth the visit!

 Out of the 3 million Albanian's that live in Albania, 1 million live in Tirana. The city itself was pretty chaotic, the buildings seem to have been slapped any where without any real flow/plan/urbanisation. There was a massive contrast between old and new, private and public buildings. 

 The main central square was under a massive facelift at our time of visiting which was a shame because it will be/is a pretty central and significant area connecting a lot of the notable sites in the city centre. Renovations will see that something from every area/town of Albania is displayed - the idea is that anyone from Albania can visit their capital and be reminded of their home...

 Tirana was not what we expected, it was rough around the edges but very lively and we really enjoyed what it had to offer!

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Monday, 14 November 2016

Kotor - Montenegro

09:59:00 No comments
Wow, what a pearla! The coastline and bays of Croatia paired with massive mountains (Montenegro meaning "black mountain") made for a ripper surprise when we crossed from the Croatian boarder into Montenegro. Almost instantly the scenery changed as the bus started to wind around the coast line from the Croatian border. It was around lunch when we'd finally got through the Montenegro border crossing via Croatia after leaving Mostar - BiH at 7am with a bit of a hangover we blame on beer from a 2 litre plastic bottle (actually put me off beer for about 2 weeks). 

We were pretty keen to get off the bus and grab some fresh air when we finally reached Kotor. We had an AirBnB inside the Kotor fortified walls, our first accommodation in an actual old town which was a bit less then a km from the station to our apartment.

 The apartment was pretty small in comparison to what we'd had in the Croatia and BiH, and expensive for what it was. It was up about three flights of stairs (which stunk of cat piss), right next to another apartment which was been renovated from 7am till 7pm each day, sending dust everywhere.... Our bed was a fold out couch, which was fine, but the fitted sheet didn't fit. We love AirBnB but every single place we've stayed at has had some sort of kicker, whether it be big or tiny. The host came back sorted the sheet situation and out and we went to get some tucker by around 3pm.

 I jumped on Tripadvisor and the number one place to eat was a little takeaway grill called Tanjga, it had raving reviews so we decided to hit that up - and it did not disappoint!!
Number 1 place on Tripadvisor and it did not disappoint!!!! Our regret is that we didn't go back and eat there everyday, it was delicious.!
Most tender and tasty beef sandwich of the trip (maybe ever)!! 25AUD for two sangas and a coke each. Quite pricey compared to BiH. But it did make us super full and we certainly didn't require dinner that night!
We were pretty shagged so after a full tummy we headed to the grocery shop to get breakfast, fruit and snacks for the next few days, then back to the apartment to get some rest before getting out and about the next couple of days.
Main wall of the Old Kotor is impressive at first site.
Hiking up the outside of the Kotor Castle walls to find the back entrance - just to save a couple of Euro's and go on an adventure. This track was the original road into Kotor before the Austo-Hungarians built the real road in the 19th century. If we had another day I would have walked up this road and onto the mausoleum (6hr hike). The views would have been amazing.
A little Chapel on the walk up outside the castle walls, in good condition for something which was off the beaten track.
Walls access point up the hill!
View from the top of the fortified wall back on the bay of kotor.
The third day we packed a lunch and decided to hike up the other side of the bay to get a glimpse of the Adriatic, explore Fort Vrmac and generally just get amongst it.

The views all the way up the walk are amazing. Its pretty amazing looking back on the old town of Kotor which is dwarfed by a cruise ship!
Fort Vrmac was built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire around 1860 and saw some action during WW1. It's in pretty good nick considering. It has a eerie feel and we thought it might have been a prison but since we've found out it was used for military purposes. 
Fort Vrmac.
Running around inside the fort.
LOOK HOW CLOSE THAT SUCKER IS AS I SIT ON WALLS OF KOTOR! Kotor's walls are pretty big, not as big as Dubrovnik but sizeable. Then along comes this steel ship and dwarfs something thats stood for centuries! 
The Great Montenegro Tour
We had to add another day to our stay in Kotor to get onto the 360 Monte - Great Montenegro Tour - 35Euros/person which was a full day of top sites including Lovcen National Part, River Crnojevica, Budva walking tour and visiting traditional restaurants etc. Minus a couple of sites, you get to see majority of the highlights of Montenegro in a solid day tour so we thought it was worth doing. We toyed with the idea of hiring a car and driving ourselves but were happy to be chauffeured for the day with a local guide to get the low down on the country. 
The famous road to Cetinje - built 1880's without machinery is a pretty impressive feat. taken from 360Monte.
Views from the side of the road up to Mount Lovcen and the mausoleum. The Bay of Kotor in the bottom right corner, Boka bay on the left and the Adriatic sea on the horizon.
Coffee and a cold meat plater at Njegusi village - 9.30am
The Mausoleum is a dedication and tomb to the "greatest Montenegrin ruler and poet Petar II Petrovic Njegos". At nearly 1700m above sea level, on a clear day you can see 6 countries - Montenegro, Italy across the Adriatic, Croatia, Serbia and Albania. The views did not disappoint and the whole structure and engineering effort to build something so significant and so grand was pretty impressive.
450+ steps through this sucker to get to the mausoleum from the carpark.
Catching our breath after getting through the tunnel.
A 30 tonne marble statue of the great man Njegos.
12 tonne statues of his wife and daughter.


After the mausoleum we headed to the city of Cetinje - the old royal capital of Montenegro and today the honorary capital of Montenegro. 
Cipur Church - not so old but built on some old foundations.






















Cipur Monastery included on the tour with some religious facts.


River of Crnojevic - pretty spectacular rainforest feeling. The river runs into Skadar Lake National Park, one of the largest bird reserves in Europe.




A cheeky lunch stop at a traditional restaurant - crispy pork sausage rolled in bacon and filled with cheese! Along with a typical Balkan salad.
A boat ride down the Crnojevic - beautiful calm clear water. There were some pretty nice campsites along the river. It would be a magical place to stay.

That calm water.......

We finished off the tour at the most popular tourist destination of Montenegro - Budva. Budva is the home of one of Europes largest nightclubs Top Hill which can hold 5000 people, and is super popular with celebrities from all over the world to visit. Also home to a 5 star resort islet Sveti Stefan, a private playground for the rich and famous. Sveti Stefan is notable as the place Novak Djokovic got married...

 We arrived at Budva around 4.30pm, just enough time to explore the tiny old town which is compared to a smaller version of Dubrovnik, and see the sunset.
Budva Old Town from the beach.

Budva Dancer - tribute to a promising dancer who committed suicide off the cliffs (apparently).

Montenegro was amazing, we really enjoyed it!! In comparison to BiH it was more expensive, similar to the prices we saw for accommodation and tucker as Dubrovnik - which makes sense since its so close and has a steady flow of cruise ships come and go. Budva a little more expensive again compared to rural Croatia and BiH, it has a modern feel and seems like it would be a great place to explore over summer when everyone is here to party and hit the beach. 

Things to know:
Kotor old town has a lot of cats! This is apparently because when Kotor was a rich trading port and a lot of ships came and go, naturally causing a breading ground for rats. So it was law that every house in the old town had to have at least one cat.... not the case any more but as a result there are a lot of cats roaming around.
The Montenegro flag sports a red background which represents blood they've spilt during many battles throughout their history, and a golden eagle in the middle which represents freedom. 
They are among some of the tallest people in the world according to our tour guide. I must say after this was mentioned there did seem to be a lot of people (men and women) taller than me... after doing some research they come in the top ten of tall people FYI. 

Overall Montenegro was amazing, we could have spent more time to explore the north of the country to visit the famous Ostrog Monastery and Tara Bridge - maybe next time. We can definitely recommend Montenegro as a must visit for its beauty and the amount of hiking/adventures available. I would consider camping at some of the smaller villages or places inland to save money and get a traditional/environmental experience.
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