Hotel Arvi Durres

... kleiden sich sehr westlich, man sieht we***** Kopftuech** als in Deutschland. Und alle 100m gibt es ein Casino.

Morgen geht es dann weit** gen Norden, sollte morgen Montenegro **reichen. Liege ganz gut in d** Zeit, kann v**mutlich einige Staedte an d** Kueste besichtigen, Inshallah.

Gruss
Ralf

P.S.
Dachte d** Pauschaltourismus ist noch nicht hi** angekommen, ab** im Nationalmuseum lief doch glatt eine deutsche Reisegruppe h**um.

Hallo zusammen

und Gruesse aus Tirana, Albanien, Land Nummer 124:-) Bin um kurz vor 9 in Tirana eingetroffen, die Strasse im Kosovo war schrecklich, der Grenzuebergang ziemlich merkwuerdig, es gibt zwar Kontrollposten, aber niemand hat die Paesse der Passagiere kontrolliert (weder auf der Kosovo noch auf der Albanischen Seite). Habe bisher nur ...

... and the establishment of Albania as the European centre for stolen Mercedes-Benz. Today, every second car in Albania is a Mercedes, including most of the taxis, and they are all driven badly. The Lonely Planet recommends crossing the road in Tirana only "if you have a love of adrenalin-fuelled high-risk activities". We saw several accidents and took our life in our hands repeatedly trying to negotiate the traffic, and at one point saw a deranged man in a ...

... to cover to get to the Greek border, so we thought it would maybe take us half a day at the most.....we were wrong. The road got a lot worse, single lane, really windy, and a ************. We took about 2 hours to cover 40km, stopped for a swim and then took another 2 hours to cover the next 30 km. The road was really narrow, and if you met another car you had to have a face off to see who went backwards! As we were 4 vans we usually won, except ...

... Much more prolific particulary in Kruje is Bektash, and ancient mix of mysticism, Islam, supersticion and witchcraft. Kruje used to be the capital of Albania, so it was a central part of the country. They believe in curses - Trev has received several death theats and curses over the last 9 years- and hang garlic and teddy bears with spike in them (!) from their houses, and mount rams horns over doors to ward off bad luck. There is a strong spirit of ...

... to see, but required about an hour at most. Then the rest of the town is mostly attractive just on a scenic level, apart from the small but charming bazaar below. Still, since the last thing I need is more things to carry, I didn't spend too long looking through the numerous souvenir shops. So, by the time I'd seen the fortress, had a relaxing lunch and wandered through the bazaar, I'd managed to see the lion's share of Kruja's sights ...

... including the Greek names Epidamnos (Επίδαμ&# 957;ος) and Dyrhacchion (Δυρράχ&# 953;ον), the Latin Dyrrachium, and the Italian Durrazzo. For other names by which Durrės is known see other names of Durrės. History Epidamnus in antiquity Greek foundation The city was founded as ...

... They formed nice lines and seemed extrorinarily well behaved. The girls were all wearing white aprons. We guess that this was part of the school uniform. The same went for the Roman stadium as for the archeological museum, minus the school children. From there, we climbed up a hill past the Palace of Albania's former king Zog. It's a military base though and we couldn't get very close to check it out. I walked towards a sand-baged guard post ...

... stand alongside mosques with no obvious signs of discontent. The town of Berat stands as wonderful testimony to this. On a high hill, the medieaval city wraps itself round Byzantine churches and mosques, some of which are in immaculate condition. ..The country looks as if, after hundreds of years of subsistence living, the people have suddenly thought fit to sign up to a five year plan to build as many identikit, concrete homes as it takes to house the ...

After several days kicking back in the sun, it was time to get back on the road. For the next 36 hours it seemed all we did was catch ferries. The first one took us from Korcula Island (Croatia) back to Dubrovnik (Croatia)- it seemed to be massively overcrowded as there was literally more bodies than deck space - we even overheard an older Australian lady make a formal complaint that she thought it was unsafe!!! We survived however by sitting downstairs near the reception area ...