Kruje - Albania
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2007
1
59
164
Trip End
Nov 20, 2009
Kruje,
Albania
Monday, June 23, 2008
- Mental drivers
- Heinous roads
- Heaps of gypsies
- Good seafood
- Good beaches
- Pretty 'rural' and undeveloped
- Thousands of bomb-proof 'bunkers'
And..........all the above were true. However the tip-off on the condition of the drivers and the roads just did not do it justice. Both were truly, truly, horrendous! Albania didn't have any cars until the mid 90's (only two licences were given in 45 years), so not only have almost all Albanians been behind a wheel less than 10 years, but there was no need to invest in road infrastructure. As Lonely Planet puts it "driving is still most akin to India than Europe", "the coastal road from Vlora to Saranda [one of the routes we were taking] is particularly treacherous", "local driving habits are best described as free spirited" and "in short, it's a really, really hard place to drive".
Arriving at the border is sometimes an acid test of a country. As our "Green Card' insurance didn't cover Albania we are supposed by law to buy special (minimal coverage) insurance for our time there
All the major food groups!
. We had to do this in Montenegro too, which was easy and cheap enough (not so for a lot of other countries mind you). We ferried back and forth between two wooden huts at the border, where they just said in broken English "Welcome to Albania, you'll love it!" and waved us on. We were in two minds whether to get the insurance given the crazy driving, but don't even think it was available! Hmmmm, we better not crash then - easier said than done given what we'd been advised!!!!!!!!!There was a marked difference coming from Montenegro, which was considerably more developed. Plenty of horse and carts to drive around, and potholes the size of bomb craters to avoid. Albania is playing catch up big time with its neighbours. Although it's predominantly Muslim it really wasn't that noticeable as until relatively recently religion was banned here. The concrete bunkers we'd heard about were everywhere (there's 700,000 in the country). Like oversized Dr Who Daleks, these were built in the 60's and 70's when Albania broke alliance with the Soviet Union and went solo, and were designed so people could hide in them and survive tank bombardments (go figure!)
Our first stop was Kruje, a dusty dirt ride to a hillside town, roads at 45 degree slopes, and with a castle and friendly people. We arrived near dusk, with all the old guys in suits chewing the fat, sipping thick coffee on street corners. Really a wandering place, we spent the night and next morning there, and then through the coastal town of Durres, headed for the town of Berat in the mountainous interior, billed as "a highlight of any trip to Albania" and "a collection of white Ottoman houses climbing up the hill to the castle, earning it the title of the town of 1,000 windows". Hmmmmm......we were in the right place, but the lack of any real Ottoman houses, whitewashing of any variety, and some crumbled remains that we assumed was the castle, meant wandering was brief and we headed out the same night. Maybe we'd already been spoilt with great ruins and villages in the past.
