Hotel Pashai Vlore

... bewoelkt ist ist es immer noch 30 Grad und recht schwuel.

Berat besteht aus einer Burg auf einem Berg. Diese enthaelt ebenfalls Kirchen und auch heute noch bewohnte Haeuser. Am Berghang gibt es dann einen alten Vorort und auf der anderen Flussseite, durch eine Steinbruecke verbunden, einen weiteren Vorort. Drumherum gibt es heute aber natuerlich auch eine moderne Stadt mit guter sozialistischer Architektur.

Gruss
Ralf

... last bus, our sightseeing cut short but taste buds fulfilled.

On the way back, Juliana gets stung. She had been reading an article on bees that morning. She goes to a produce vendor for an onion to put on it. I never heard about it but it seems to work.

A greeting that I experienced was hand across the chest, over the heart. I reciprocate when I see it. Juliana uses the Hindu method of hands joined at the chest and bowing.

... the beach to Sveti Stefan. The amount of fat Europeans that oil themselves and sit in the 5 euro beach chairs along the 4km stretch was appalling. There was rubbish and cigarette butts everywhere all along the private beaches. In Europe you truly do get nothing for free and I can see why they foam at the mouth when they see a gold old aussie beach.
Yesterday I left Budva for Tirana, Albania. This took about 6 hours and three different buses but I met a nice Aussie who ...

... choose to sit by the roadside cafes and watch, but not the women. I guess since they are the main attraction of the show, they have no rest.

As soon as I entered the countryside, I started to notice the concrete bunkers. Mostly they are in pairs by the roadsides; each of them is small and has a round top, look a bit like an oversized mushroom. After seeing so many of them, I decided to find out what kind of deal they are, and discovered an entertaining story ...

Berat, Albania, is a small town in the center of the country. Albania is funny because it was shut off from the world for so long during communism, and they are slowly rebuilding themselves and exploring being part of the greater world. This sounds little strange, but it really is like this. A lot of people expressed fear about going to Albania, wondering if it was safe, etc. but we had a great ...

... been there for a long time on the hills where a river passes through. The backpackers I am staying at is brand new and they are still doing it up. That is one thing about Macedonia and Albania all the backpackers are just starting up in the past year as there has hardly been any backpackers come this way before. In a few years time there will be lots of backpackers coming through this way so it is ...

... heading to Gjirokaster, only a couple of hours north of Sarande. All of the Albanian landscape that I had encountered thus far had been rather dull and boring, but this ride was different. We passed by tree-lined rivers where there were still fall colors on some of the trees with mossy green hills nearby and snow-covered mountains in the distance. I actually started to think that Albania did have some beautiful places in it.

... 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 driving ...

... wall and a wooden main gate. The gate dates back to 1474. Immediately on the right, once inside, there is a door that takes you to the basement where an olive pressing device is found. In the center of the yard is the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, which was built in the time of the Despot of Epirus at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The surrounding galleries housed the monks and guests and served as areas for trade and commercial activity. Most of the church ...

... giant, called Shpirag over a young woman. They killed each other and the girl drowned in her tears, which then became the Osum river. Mount Shpirag, named after the second giant, is on the left bank of the gorge, above the district of Gorica. Berati is known to Albanians as 'The City of a Thousand Windows' a similar epithet to that sometimes applied to Gjirokastra, The City of Two Thousand Steps, and has a mixture of Orthodox, Muslim, Greeks and Vlach inhabitants ...