This is part of the sixteenth section of our around the world trip.
Complete Trip Overview & Map

Coming from Greece or read our previous visit to Albania

5/5/10 When we visited Albania 12 years ago it was only two months after the civil war had devastated the country's economy and left many people without money and with weapons. It had been a tense three days in the country, and entering today we mentally reflected on that past visit. Today's was an easy entry, passports stamped, no paperwork required for the motorcycle. Of all our revisited countries it was immediately discernible that this one had changed the most. The past 12 years have been good to Albania. The road to Gjirokastra was of good western standard and we spent a couple of hours in the historical town of cobble stone streets and stone roofed houses, meeting three Hungarian motorcyclists on their one week Balkans tour near the town's castle and saw a number of other tourists. An afternoon ride over the mountains to the coast at Saranda, a place described to us as a burgeoning Monte Carlo, a significant exaggeration, however the similarity can be seen as new high rise apartments wind their way up the hillside for ocean views. The quiet fisherman's bay has undergone a rapid tourist transformation with day trippers from Corfu in Greece and more wealthy inland Albanians coming to the coast for holidays. Europe might be in a state of recession but outwardly this place is booming. We managed to find a magnificent hotel room, balcony overlooking the harbour in the middle of town, right near the waterfront for 20 Euro a night. Oversupply, early season, or is this the Albanian price? Dinner and a beer for two another 10 Euro, perhaps it is just Albania? Perhaps this is why there is a boom happening.

6/5/10 We attempted to ride a bit further south to Butrint but extensive roadworks deterred us, government works widening the old narrow road. Most of the day was spent melding into the country, nominally Muslim, men dominate community areas, sitting in coffee shops doing business, while less seen, women work more out of sight. The evenings are similar, men in bars and restaurants, sipping rather than indulging with only a few women conservatively strolling the promenade, often with children, but almost everyones dress is western, hardly a headscarf to be seen, and pork is served in restaurants, and we haven't heard the calling from a minaret in Saranda.

7/5/10 We decided to stay an extra day, the President was scheduled to arrive for a public speech, but perhaps a misunderstanding but we didn't see him appear, but there was a band and some music in the evening along the water front otherwise a day of people watching. Friday night the promenade was packed with people watching people watching people. The popcorn and icecream sellers were busy, but there were not excesses of wealth, although many new Mercedes cars and a couple of large motorcycles did cruise past.

8/5/10 The good road wound through coastal mountains as it followed near to the coast, past small townships where shepherds tended milking sheep and donkeys carried supplies up into the mountains. It finally left the coast to wind steeply up to Llogaraja Pass, at 1000m, giving magnificent views back over the coast and where we encountered busloads of Tirana students out for the weekend, only to descend again to the coast at Vlora. Here the good roads of Albania stopped as we hit the plains. Overloaded trucks had chopped up the poorly constructed asphalt and it was a slow ride to our destination back in the mountains at Berat. Once Albania's capital, a castle sits atop a prominent position near the confluence of two snow melt mountain rivers where white stone and terracotta tiled houses climb the slopes. The new towns architecture has gone through many recent changes, from the Soviet style concrete block apartments to now newer western apartment block design, but the old town keeps its past architecture nicely. After visiting the walled castle town, still occupied, a living museum, we promenaded with hundreds of locals, mostly youths, walking up and down the park lined main street, an era before the advent of cruising in motorcars, but with the same, although more discrete, objective. Dressed in their best and most modern up and down they strolled, or the more wealthy sat sipping coffee overlooking the strollers for a less energetic evening than a night at a disco.

9/5/10 A crisp morning had us riding towards Durres. The roads again poor till we reached the main coastal highway when a new freeway greeted us. There seem to be two standards of road in the country, new well built, and dreadful from a past era. Police were out, some with radar, but mostly strategically placed at intersections randomly stopping vehicles to check paperwork. Despite passing more than a dozen such checking spots since entering the country we haven't yet been stopped, suggesting they are targeting locals, avoiding tourists, which could also indicate they are doing police work not corrupt work. We stopped just short of Durres at a rapidly developing beachside place where the ever increasing height of high rise is pushing further onto the narrowing sandy beach, where roads and infrastructure are almost non existent, a place crowded by day trippers from the capital, Tirana, particularly on a sunny Sunday like today. The highrise is mostly apartments, showing increased wealth of the locals, with interspersed hotels becoming a minority. This increased need for people to own two properties is what fuelled the last economic boom in Europe, and is what we have been enjoying, at a discounted price, for the last few months. From the permanent homes in caravan parks in the UK, to the rural escapes of Ireland and France to beachside holiday apartments in Southern Europe, or even the sun seeking mobile motorhome crowd, two homes has become the great drive of the wealthy.

10/5/10 A different day, the weekenders have left, and so did we. Decided not to go to Tirana, give the city a miss and instead headed for Shkodra, near the Montenegrin border. We had travelled this road before and it was generally good and uneventful. Shkodra, where we had previously stayed, has improved significantly in that time. There were new shops, homes, and people were out in the streets, in restaurants, bars and coffee shops. We proceeded to the border, passing without problems. Generally we were amazed with the progress, perhaps too fast, that has happened in Albania in the last 12 years. There is almost an excess of cash for some of the society, money for good cars, apartments, who knows where it comes from, who asks?

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