Impressions of Albania

Coming to Albania was an interesting part of this trip because we had no idea what to expect. We found a country with amazing beauty and very generous people, but which is struggling to pull itself from the mire of its communist past.

Below are a selection of our photo's with our highlights and impressions of this intriguing country.

Crossing from Italy to Albania on the overnight (9hour) ferry. It felt cool to have our own cabin on-board the ship.

First glimpses of the colourful port city of Durres.

We ordered a Hot Chocolate and this is what arrived. More like hot chocolate mousse, we discovered this to be normal (and delicious) throughout Albania.

Our seafront Hotel in Durres. Welcome to the home of cheap tourism - this hotel was €31 per night. Definitely a bargain although the landscape on the other side of the hotel wasn't as clean or nice as this.

Outside Durres one of the first things we noticed were the many half-finished houses everywhere. It was clear that construction had been abandoned, we can only assume because money simply ran out.

In rural parts donkeys are still very much part of everyday life.

These stacks were a common site in the countryside, possibly some kind of silage?

Our first experience of rural Albanian roads - 4WD is a necessity.

After a day of 4WDing - you can see how heavy the wet clay was, which made for some fun though sometimes challenging driving.

We had a great encounter of Albanian resourcefulness when we stopped at a garage to wash the car. We'd lost the grill for the snorkel and asked the garage owner if he could help. He found a perfect piece of scrap steel, and used it to craft a perfect bespoke replacement.

Despite taking great care over the job he didn't even want to charge us -  we insisted on paying him a good amount for it.

Albanian Laundromat!

It seemed a common architectural feature to have the stairway on the outside of the buildings...

Take-aways Albanian-style.

We loved the town of Berat - the old town on the hill was especially enchanting at night.

Albanian breakfast - typically consisted of feta cheese, grilled peppers, bread, eggs, and jam - sometimes sausages as well. In this particular spread we were also given breakfast cake, freshly squeezed juice, tea and coffee. No need for lunch!

Beautiful Berat viewed from the old town. There was an old fort on top the hill which is still a working and living village. The walk up was hot but the view was worth it.

Albania has some really interesting geography including these "scrumpled up" hills.

There are guest houses in most Albanian towns. Getting a room is easy and they start from 10€ a night.

Some of the crazy contrasts of Albania - I've never seen a petrol pump this flash in the UK or NZ.

Going off-road gave us the opportunity to see some spectacular scenery like this as we climbed up and over mountains.

On the mountain roads we encountered work gangs who were collecting the slate to be brought down, processed and sold.

New season 2015...

The car of choice for Albanians is the classic Mercedes saloon - there are thousands of them on the roads. What is even more impressive is how they get them up these rough, muddy mountain roads that you would never believe they would make it up.

Yip this is a road....

Autumn colours starting to come through and showing Albania's beautiful side.

This is "Jake" (real name unpronounceable to us) standing in front of his cafe in a very small rural village in the mountains. We listened as he told us about many aspects of life in the village, and shared with us his life's challenges and also hopes.  He was happy to act as interpreter/guide and took us to visit the local school.

The older children were having an English lesson - the school building was a large concrete structure and very basic. We noticed that there weren't as many books or stationary as what we are used to seeing in Western schools. The other interesting thing was that there were 4 teachers for 50 students, so class sizes were quite small. 

Phil teaching the more curious kids how to do the Haka. They loved it!

 This very nice room in a 4-star hotel can be yours too for 40€ a night!

[Stairway of our hotel] Virtually everything is cheap in Albania, including luxury. The only thing we found that wasn't cheap was fuel, which is roughly the same as European prices.

As tourists we were lucky to be able to stay some nights in nice hotels, but this is the standard accommodation for most Albanians.

Another geological surprise.

The "highway" on our chosen road to Greece.