Hotel Restaurant Gjeli Tirana

Kruja was a short day trip out of Tirana.

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 ...

... curious mix of old Mercedes and horse drawn carts. I read somewhere that a lot of these Mercedes are actually stolen from Germany. For such a poor country it just amazed me that 90% of the cars on the potholed streets were Benzes. Now that is how to be poor with some style.

I am going to press on to Podgorica, Montenegro later. I need to be back in Osijek in a few days to catch my six Euro Ryanair flight out and spending the day at Lake Ohrid is now ...

... ahead. One large Albanian at the front, it was hard to tell who was part of the crew and who was just a mouthy *******, stood up and declared something that sounded like "passport!". I reached for mine just as the Kosovan border guard got on board. The Albanians all handed over their miniature passports/passes (they look more like after eight mints than travel documents) and I gave him mine. He looked quite shocked by it, pulling an ...

... heures a faire le voyage et pourtant la route etait belle...je reste dans un petit hotel qui exterieurement a l'air d'un taudis, mais a l'interieur est tres bien... j'ai dit au proprio:" better inside than outside"- il m'a rtepondu:" we like to make surprise".. j'ai visite un peu la ville... tout est en construction; c'est frappant- moins qu'a pekin quans meme... j'ai ouble devous parler d'une ...

... behind me. I'm not joking, I felt like the pied piper as we all bailed into the same carriage, heading on our merry way to Tirana. Train travel in Albania is nothing short of an adventure, it really has to be experienced to be believed. In the decrepit carriages every window is either smashed or missing, they have no toilets, the doors don't close properly, and they are incredibly slow, yet they wind their way through some quite scenic countryside. It took just over an hour for ...

... later when the posted sign said they'd be open from 5-7pm. At 5:15pm, when I returned I was told in broken English by one of the two men chain-smoking behind the desk that the lobby opens at 5pm, but the museum doesn't open until 6pm. And, the main exhibit of Albanian artists is currently closed, only a small exhibit on Italian artists is open this week. I decided it wasn't worth the price of admission to return to see an ...

... dinars we have left over equates to about 323 Canadian dollars. The man behind the plexiglass window, a squat, short-necked man with an Elvis-like lip, changes our money into Albanian leks, prints out a tiny receipt and pushes it all back to our side of the window. The Slovaks are waiting so we quickly make sure that the amount in our hands equals the amount printed on the receipt and catch up with them. We settle into the hotel, thankfully payable in cash but ...

... ball-chucking, Lucy and I headed back up to the house. Eni sat outside with us, but the rest of the family had to sit inside on the sofa because they only had 3 chairs. We also found out that the mum had just started her annual 15 days (!) holiday because her husband was returning for his twice yearly visit on Saturday. Now we felt really bad, and insisted when he return we'd go on the sofa. After dinner, Rudi got out a box of dominos and looked hopefully at us- so we played for about half an hour.

We are all on each others last nerve. Ready to seriously strangle some fellow contikites...we have had two 13 hours days on the bus...ENOUGH!!! Albanian countryside is gorgeous, but the roads lack enough pavement to even be considered a highway. Pothole city! The EU has given money to Albania to improve their ...

... Sector, The US Sector, The UK Sector...although many other nations have peacekeepers here. The Result? Somewhat of a surreal feel to the place! People go on about their daily lives in a "business as normal" fashion, all the while presided over by so many soldiers, police, governmental and non-governmental officials/workers. Soldiers in camoflage fatigues and toting AK-47s wander in and out of shops...White SUV's with "UN" in generic black initials are ...