Hotel Iliria Internacional Durres

Kruja was a short day trip out of Tirana. <br><br>There is a well preserved fortress that has now been converted into a museum on Albania history of Skanderberg - a prominent Albania figure in 14th century who lead ...

... und von ein** B**gstadt aus den Ottomanen ein kleines Reich abgetrotzt. In 25 Schlachten mit den Ottomanen ging ** als Sieg** h**vor und sein Reich wurde **st 26 Jahre nach seinem Tod von den Ottomanen besiegt (in 1479). Die Alban** sehen sich als Rett** des Abendlandes, waren die Ottomanen doch zu ihr** sta**ksten Zeit in Schlachten mit Skand**b**g beschaeftigt statt die Truppen gen Wien zu schicken. <br><br>Albanien macht keinen sehr islamischen Eindruck, die ...

... cliffs on both sides. If you want to build an Albanian road, here's what you do. Choose an extremely winding path through high hills and deep valleys. Make sure that the road doesn't stay straight for more than 30 metres. Loosely cover it in gravel, and be sure that there are deathly steep drops to sudden doom on both sides. Add a few goats and assorted feral animals. Lastly, bring in the artillery and shell the whole thing for two months straight and you'll have ...

... we met a concrete truck and had to try and squeeze into a non-existant gap! We made it, hot and bothered, to the blue eyed spring, a cold water spring. It was beautiful and cold, and awesomely fresh ( amazingly there was no rubbish here!) so we all had a swim and filled our drinking water containers. Then we headed to the border, where we crossed a nice new road, and joined the massive queue to get out of the country! If anyone is thinking of ...

... than taking us to the hostel and coming back, we sat and waited and waited. By the time we made it to the hostel, it was 4pm. Finally, our day was coming to a close. We checked into our airconditioned private room and passed out, only to be woken by our alarm clock for 8:30 dinner. To wrap this blog up, just a quick word about Albania. The little that we saw of it made quite an impression. It reminded me of other travels, such as morocco, or south america ...

... far on the trip. It's refreshing to visit a place where people are genuinely interested in knowing where you come from and will go out of their way to have a chat and make you feel at home in their country. Given the amount of horror stories (read: hogwash) running rampant about the place in neighboring countries, it's good to get here and see what's really happening. No two ways about it: Albania's a severely underrated and seriously interesting place.

... in 627 BC by Greek colonists from Corinth and Corcyra. Its geographical position was highly advantageous, being situated around a natural rocky harbour which was surrounded by inland swamps and high cliffs on the seaward side, making the city very difficult to attack from either land or sea. Epidamnos was noted for being a politically advanced society ...

... the road was completely blocked with barbed wire. I wanted a better look but the guard waved his AK-47 at me and I made a prompt 180. Further along the road we went to see the lighthouse but it wasn't possible to get that close to it either. We did find a look-out on a hill, about 300 km up from the water. Looking across the Adriatic was a nice view. Towards Italy the view was a bit hazy, but the water was extremely clear. Looking so ...

... people chaotically negotiating big holes under their feet. One of the bus stops was a construction site with 6 lanes of traffic going back and forth, bit hectic but definately felt alive trying to secure our place on the side of the old concrete pillars to catch our furgon... The city is developing so fast and our guide book was outdated even though it is this year"s edition, they even have a fake McDonalds!

... another a couple of aussies - Ian and Hayley - a couple from NSW who were a long way into their round the world trip. From Dubrovnik we then had to wait 6hrs before catching an overnight ferry to Bari - yes that is Bari, Italy!!! We knew of no other way, nor did anyone else for that matter(including the tourist office) of how to get to Albania. We managed to score some space on the upper deck of the ferry and slept under the stars. We met another couple (Angelo and Ana)who ...