<b>October 10-12, 2011: Tackling Tirana</b>

Tirana didn’t make it onto my initial itinerary for Albania – I figured I’d arrive on one bus, cross town, and leave on another. This might not have been such a good plan. “Bus station” doesn’t mean quite the same in Albania as it does in other European countries. Even the guide books tell you that the locations they list need to be verified on the ground. And the locations for mini-buses or shared taxis, which might leave at more friendly hours than the buses, are even more fluid.

Once I gave up on the coast, and decided to spend a couple of days in the capital, I saw a fair amount of the city just checking out bus locations. The dusty and forlorn train station was fairly easy to track down, since it, obviously, had not moved, and I found a couple of bus parking lots nearby, but really the best solution was to use a taxi and rely on the driver’s local knowledge. Although I had arrived by bus (after a long and boring drive only enlivened by conversation with the tour guide seated next to me) it had dropped me on a street south of my hotel that bore no relation to the locations I needed for north-bound transport.

Tirana largely lived down to my expectations. True, the staff at my hotel were friendly, and it had a reasonable restaurant. True, the views from the revolving bar at the top of the Sky Tower were good. True, the main square, with its statue of Skanderbeg, hero of the 15th century resistance to the Turks, may be impressive when its renovation is complete, but meanwhile it’s a dangerous construction zone, where pedestrians risk a turned ankle or a close encounter with a bulldozer. Otherwise I found the History Museum uninspiring and the architecture mostly unimpressive.

Following a tip from a backpacking couple I met in Saranda, I spent the morning of my one full day in Tirana out of town at the mountain village of Kruja, Skanderbeg’s birthplace. Unfortunately, I didn’t read my guidebook carefully enough, and wound up taking a bus to Fushe Kruja, at the foot of the mountain, instead. I had a long wait for the minibus to Kruja to leave, and then discovered that if I had walked a couple of blocks into town I could have taken a taxi.

The location is undeniably scenic, with views as far as the coast, but the village, and especially the re-built one-street bazaar, is remarkably touristy. The most prominent building within the castle walls was put up in 1982 by Hoxha’s daughter and son-in-law. At least this museum, unlike the strange pyramid they erected in Tirana, was dedicated to Skanderbeg and not Hoxha, but by this time I felt I had seen enough museums dedicated to battles against the Turks and skipped it. I should probably have skipped the Ethnographic Museum as well, although I was interested in the women’s gallery that allowed them to see what the men were up to, but I did find the small Sufi teke evocative. (The teke is mentioned in Bradt, but not Lonely Planet, and you need someone to alert its guardian to unlock it for you.)

<b>October 12-13, 2011: Going Grand in Shkodra</b>

My taxi had no trouble finding the mini-buses (furgons) to Shkodra, my final stop in Albania. Supposedly they left from a big traffic circle called Zogu i Zi (named after Zog I, a warlord turned king who ruled Albania between the World Wars), but they were actually hidden behind a building, off an alley, off one of the main roads leading away from the circle. I had found them on foot by dint of asking the locals, my driver took a shortcut through side streets to avoid the traffic circle. I could have taken a “proper” bus from a lot near the train station, but that left at 6:00 am. The furgons left when full.

Albania was certainly cheaper than its neighbors, and I decided to treat myself to a multi-starred hotel for my last nights in the country. I picked the Europa Grand over the Colosseo based on its extra star and the pictures on its web site, but I nearly left when the front desk initially refused to match the website rate. I laughed a little when I saw my room, all black wood and red brocade, heavily trimmed with gold, with a large black and white bathroom featuring a glittery sink. Quite a change from my usual digs. (Later I found a shortage of both light and hot water, that the AC was hopelessly feeble, and that wifi only worked in the lobby.)

The ride from Tirana had been a bit more interesting than the ride to Tirana, mostly because of the mountains visible to the east, although the foreground remained scruffy. The town itself wasn’t very interesting, though, and I was unable to take the ferry ride I had hoped for on Lake Koman. The young woman in the little T.I kiosk was very helpful – just like the T.I. people in Tirana – but at that time of year there was only one ferry a day. I could travel east, but not get back west.

I did take a taxi out to the Rozafa fortress, where there were some good views (and a few local couples making out), but photos of a nearby Ottoman-era bridge were marred by construction work and lack of water. My attempt to visit the Marubi Permanent Photo Collection was no more successful than my attempt to visit the Medieval Arts Museum in my first Albanian stop, Korca. However, the two women students I had asked for directions (they were actually as clueless as I was) tried so hard to be helpful that after we finally found the museum entrance (down an alley behind an apartment building) and saw that it was closed, I invited them for coffee. They had very little English and I had no Albanian, but they were fascinated by my phrase book. I did establish that one was a Muslim (no veil) and one a Catholic, and that neither of them would think of having a boyfriend.

Shkodra seemed well supplied with students: my last night in town a large group took over the rooftop bar for an early evening event. The music reverberated through the hotel, but fortunately ended around 7:00. As I watched the students leave I marveled at the shortness of the girls’ skirts – we could have been back in the 60s, when I wore mini skirts myself….

I did see a couple of women on the street in full black burkhas, and the two mosques did seem to compete for how long and loud their call to prayer could be, but it’s not clear how much religious observance has recovered from its ruthless supression under Hoxha. Cafe culture, on the other hand, was as popular as in the other Balkan countries.

Lovely, still following, and I love the pictures on your blog. I admire you so much for tackling this trip alone, through such relatively 'unexplored' and certainly unvisited and untouristy countries.

Thank you for posting, and please continue to do so, as it may well encourage those of us too timid to venture there at the present time.

That said, I am all agog to read about your time in Sarajevo and indeed, Bosnia & Herzegovina as a country, having spent a little time there myself.

More soon please!

Hi julia_t - good to "see" you again. I admire you for driving yourself in the Balkans! Montenegro coming up next.

<b>October 14, 2011: Back with the tourists at Budva</b>

Only eight people rode the 20-seat bus from Shkodra to Ulcinj, at the southern tip of diamond-shaped Montenegro. Lonely Planet had advised arriving early, but at this time of year that was a waste of time. My plans were fluid: the room I wanted at the Villa Drago in Sveti Stefan wouldn’t be available until the next day. I could stay in Ulcinj, and move north the next day. I could go as far as Bar, Montenegro’s port. Or I could go past Sveti Stefan to Budva, which sounded the most attractive option. Having seen the museums in the old capital, Cetinje, and been driven over the impressive mountain roads of the interior, on a day trip from Dubrovnik back in 2004, this time I was concentrating on the coast.

The border crossing went quickly, and Montenegro looked a bit better cared for than Albania, but here in the south still quite empty. I only saw the outskirts of Ulcinj, as a bus was leaving for Budva just 15 minutes after I arrived. Ulcinj looked small and quiet, whereas Bar looked busy and industrial, and I was glad to keep going to Budva, spreading around a pretty bay and up a hillside. I followed the Lonely Planet map from the bus station to the Kangaroo Hotel, where I rejected the first room, with the smelly bathroom I had read about on tripavisor, and settled happily into the second, with a little balcony.

I spent the afternoon a fair trek from the Kangaroo at Budva’s tourist central, the walled old town. After my time in Albania, where I had encountered a bare handful of independents, plus a couple of bus tours at Butrint, Budva came as a bit of a shock. It might be the tail end of the season, but there were still more tourists than I had seen in a while strolling the narrow marble streets of the old town. Given the number of souvenir shops and the size of some of the cafes, it was clear that in season the place expected to be mobbed.

I enjoyed the views from the walls, I admired the old buildings, and I had a lovely time in the library in the museum, with its extensive collection of books on the Balkans. After an expensive coffee in one of the cafes on the pebbly beach beyond the walls, I walked around the nearby headland admiring the strata lines. On the way back I met an Austrian woman who said she visited the town every year and was thinking of buying property. I, on the other hand, would prefer to move to Austria…

With the Austrian I visited the Orthodox church and enjoyed its interesting iconostasis, and then she found the T.I. for me. I had searched for it in vain, and I was glad to be able to pick up the timetable for the bus I would need in the morning. She also recommended a seaside restaurant for dinner, but the weather had turned cold and windy, and I chose to eat at the Kangaroo instead.

Budva was heaving with tourists the time I was there. It was like a town on the costas. You sound like you got lucky.

gertie - yes, although the weather wasn't great. But loads of empty seats in the cafes. Turned out the season was really over here, too. (Can't think why the Austrian lady wanted to move there...)

<b>October 15-17, 2011: Stunning Sveti Stefan</b>

Once upon time, the tiny rocky island of Sveti Stefan was a refuge, home to fishermen and their families. A place to wait out raids by the Turks, and later by pirates. Now it’s still a refuge, although connected to the shore by a narrow causeway, but of a very different kind. The villagers were moved to the mainland by the government some time back, and now the whole island is a hotel (http://www.amanresorts.com/amansvetistefan/home.aspx ). A very, very expensive hotel, for very, very wealthy people seeking privacy. The enemy now are paparazzi, not pirates.

I had no thoughts of staying on the island itself, I’d stay in the new village on the mainland, and enjoy looking at the forbidden territory offshore. It had occurred to me that I might splurge on a meal there, but fortunately I couldn’t indulge this extravagant impulse as the hotel had closed for the season the weekend before. In fact it seemed that about everywhere in Sveti Stefan aside from the Vila Drago and a tiny village store had closed as well. And the Villa would close the next week.

I had reserved room five at the Vila (http://viladrago.com/index1.php ), which meant I had two balconies, one looking along the coast towards Budva, and one looking directly at the island. And the island, all grey stone and red tiles, its church spire rising among sentinel cypress trees at the highest point, was drop-dead gorgeous. Just too picturesque. I figured I had better views on the shore looking at the island, than I would have done on the island itself. And as an extra bonus for arriving at the dead end of the season, the beaches were deserted. In season, I heard, you had to pay anything from 50 to 125 euros for a beach chair and umbrella. That’s if the beach in question wasn’t off limits to the hoi polloi altogether.

It’s true that the weather could have been better, and I could have been feeling better. Even with the sun shining, it was chilly, and the wind made eating outdoors problematic. Plus, I seemed to have caught a cold, and the remedy that had worked in Serbia was of no help here. But this was a great place to sit around admiring the view, and I did manage a hike up the coast to the next village, finding beautiful views round every headland.

Fortunately, the Vila Drago provided good food as well as good rooms, as I ate all my meals there. Indeed, the daily fish special was far more food than I could eat. I caught the bus back to Budva after two nights very satisfied with my visit, and with absolutely no need to go back.

I found Budva (in 2007) quite 'quaint', but felt it was just another old walled town. Bear in mind I was seeing it after spending time in Trogir, Dubrovnik and Kotor, all much nicer (IMHO) old walled towns.

The harbour at Budva when I was there was filled with yachts and boats belonging to Russian oligarchs, and kind of reminded me of what Puerto Banus (near Marbella, Spain) was like back in the early 80s when the idle rich knew about it, but their hangers-on hadn't quite caught up and 'discovered' it.

Like you I feel no need to return to Budva.

julia_t - plenty of yachts in residence, but not as plutocratic as the ones I saw in Hvar in '04. Might be the time of year. I think the Croatian/Montenegrin coast plus islands is supposed to be the "new" Riviera.

thursday's - just a quick thank you for this report (so far). This one's been up in it's own browser tab on my pc for some time so that I could continue reading as time allowed. I've quite enjoyed reading about these less reported places.

Clifton - thanks for the encouragement!

All - hope you're having a good holiday season. Best wishes for lots of travel in 2012.

<b>October 17-18, 2011: Kotor With a Cold</b>

Whatever bug I had picked up in Albania didn’t want to leave me. Combined with a very hot bus ride from Budva to Kotor, and a 15 minute schlep round the outside of the old town, I arrived in no mood for extended sight-seeing. My room, at Apartment Tianis, wasn’t an apartment, but had a balcony with a view of the impressive hillside behind the town, and was conveniently located across from a small mall, where I picked up another medication for my cold. Once again, I was reminded that I was traveling all but out of season. Normally breakfast would have been served in the garden of the house, but the owners were getting ready to move out to their winter home, and I picked up supplies from the mini-market in the mall instead.

I had intended to day-trip by bus to Perast and Risan, and even entertained thoughts of climbing the 1,350 steps that led up along the extended town walls to the fortifications perched nearly 4,000 feet above the harbor. But not with a cough, a runny nose, and no energy. I settled for sipping coffee, either in one of the outdoor cafes in the town, or in the mall, and exploring the maze of streets inside the walls. I got lost a lot, but that was fine. The place was small enough that I didn’t stay lost for long.

I also spent a little time outside the walls, by the harbor. The bulk of Kotor’s tourists arrive on day trips from Dubrovnik, but some arrive on the smaller cruise ships. A rather grubby looking OAT boat was in the harbor both days, but the beautiful Sea Cloud II, masts rising high above her decks, seemed only to stay a couple of hours before disappearing again.

Besides the cold, I had a nasty heat rash on both legs. I put this down to the very, very cheap Dove soap I had bought in Albania not being Dove soap at all. Then, as all bad things are supposed to come in threes, I found that the bus I wanted to take to Trebinje in Bosnia only ran on the weekends. It seemed I had no choice but to reach Bosnia via Dubrovnik in Croatia. Since I had visited Dubrovnik in 2004, and all the reports said that it had just gotten more and more touristy since, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about going back. And even then, the buses to Dubrovnik didn’t run every day.

I cut a day from Kotor, bought a ticket to Dubrovnik, and arranged to stay in a small apartment in the old town.

<b>October 19-21: Drenched in Dubrovnik</b>

If I had been traveling with my well-worn Eagle Creek backpack with the built-in rain cover, I could have trekked down the 68 stone steps from my mini-apartment (http://www.adriatic-home.com/Croatia...s-MINERVA-5655 ) to Dubrovnik’s main street, the Stradun, under the shelter of my umbrella. Instead, I had a wheeled bag, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it down the stairs and manage an umbrella at the same time. So we both got wet. Very wet, as the rain was coming down in sheets the day I left. The streets of the old town drained well, but a veritable lake divided me from the taxis outside the walls. Fortunately, the bus stop was on my side of the water and a bus appeared just as I was getting ready to wade the lake.

My arrival in Dubrovnik had been a lot drier, but not a lot more auspicious. I navigated the bus station easily enough – ATM, money changer, toilet, ticket to Mostar, ticket into town – but then got off the bus one stop too soon. Worse, I arrived at the Pile Gate into the old town at the same time as another flood – this one of people. A rope divided those entering from those leaving, and I actually had to queue to get into town. Eventually I managed to extricate myself from the mob milling around inside the gate and once I’d made it up the stairs past the first two side streets I was on my own.

Things had indeed grown much worse since my first visit in 2004. Then I had slept out of the old town on the Lapad peninsula, and I had only noticed cruse ship people one lunch-time, when the couple at the next table had wanted to pay with euros. Now, even in October, there are days when 9,000 passengers – 9,000! – descend on the town on the same day. Under this assault, any authenticity that had remained in 2004 has pretty much vanished. All the level ground, and the first two streets up the hill are given over to shops and cafes. Higher up, locals still live, but rent out rooms. You can’t even buy groceries in the old town, the nearest place is a cramped store a short walk away that no-one would visit for serious food shopping.

It’s true that on my second day, with no cruse ships in port, the emptier streets felt a little eerie, but that was because of the lack of locals. I did appreciate having the walls almost entirely to myself, when I went up late in the afternoon, but I didn’t appreciate the steep price increase since my last visit. I noticed that the whole town had been further prettied up – in 2004 you could still distinguish the houses that had survived the 1991 siege and bombardment by their weathered roofs, but now all were uniformly new.

The daily influx of visitors who eat only one, or maybe two, meals had had a bad effect on some of the restaurants. One of the most expensive meals of my whole trip, at Wanda, turned out to be one of the worst. The next day I listened to my landlady and ate much better food at the family-run Spaghetteria Toni, even though I’m not that fond of Italian food. My best meal in town, though, was shrimp at a cheap and cheerful little place tucked down a side street opposite the cathedral.

The town is still, of course, marvelously pretty, and the marble streets a delight to explore. It would be a shame to miss it, and to miss the approach along the coast – my bus ride north from Kotor featured mile after mile of lovely scenery. But do try to avoid the busiest days. The Port Authority publishes a handy list of expected arrivals which should allow land-based visitors to avoid the most crowded days (http://www.portdubrovnik.hr/girica1.php ). As with Venice, though, the only thing that will really help is a limit on the number of passengers per day. But that would affect profits…

That sounds like it was 3 years ago when I was there. One day there were 5 cruise ships in and I was lucky to get round the city walls early in the morning before the crowds. Yes, I can see Dubrovnik turning into another Venice without local inhabitants and given over to tourism.
Did you have to reserve your apartment with some kind of foreign money order? That was one of the big drawbacks for me. Croatia must be the only country still using that system. Very inconvenient. Looks like you found a nice place. I was surprise how relatively expensive Dubrovnik was.

I booked my apartment maybe two days ahead, when I found I would have to go via Dubrovnik, no deposit. The apartment was fine but a bit dark - both windows looked over the stairs.

I'm sure all those cruisers drive the restaurant prices up, and there's only so much space in the old town. If you were planing a longer stay, the Lapad peninsula might be a better bet - the bus system is good. I stayed here in 2004 - http://www.hotels-sumratin.com/index.php?action=zagreb - nice big room and they've added AC since then.

<b>October 21-23, 2011: Musings on Mostar</b>

I suspect that the Balkan department is where Professors of History send their enemies, that they may be driven mad. While I did some rudimentary research on Balkan history (I recommend Rebecca West’s “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” and Robert Kaplan’s “Balkan Ghosts“) I don’t pretend to an understanding. The shortest and simplest outline I can manage goes as follows: in the beginning there were Illyrians and Thracians, influenced by the Greeks. The Romans ruled for a while, and after the Empire fell the area was overrun by Slavs from the Caucasus. In the west the Slavs became Croats – coastal and Catholic – and in the east they became Serbs – inland and Orthodox. After the Ottomans took over from the Byzantines, some communities converted to Islam. The descendents of the converts are known as Bosniaks in what is now Bosnia.

When I was growing up (right after WWII, a shockingly long time ago) the comforting mantra about the Holocaust was “never again”. Yet, just fifty years later, ethnic cleansing was once again disfiguring Europe, along with rape camps, and the almost medieval siege and bombardment of cities like Dubrovnik, and of Mostar and Sarajevo, where I was headed next. Mostar was a particularly sad case. After the Croats and the Bosniaks collaborated to defeat the invading Serbs, the Croats turned on the Bosniaks, bombarding their section of the city and eventually destroying the beautiful and historic bridge that was its symbol. (Not that I want to suggest that any one side was noticeably better-behaved than any other.)

On my last visit to the Balkans I had seen war damage in Croatia, although not in Slovenia, which was able to leave the Yugoslav federation largely unscathed. This time I had seen none in Macedonia, which had left with no fighting at all, or in Montenegro, which had been responsible for the seige of Dubrovnik, but seemed to have escaped damage itself. Bosnia was another matter. The iconic bridge in Mostar had been rebuilt in as faithful a reconstruction as possible (there’s an excellent museum devoted to the bridge), and buildings along the river front have also been restored. But wander a little away from the river, and damaged buildings and even streets are not hard to find, and the place still feels like a divided city.

Mostar and its bridge seem to be well-established on the tourist circuit, although while I had to dodge groups near the bridge, at least during the day, I saw no other tourists further afield. Based on a photo on the town’s tourist literature I trekked out to the Partisan Memorial, built during the Communist era to honor WWII guerilla fighters. Good thing I enjoyed the walk, as the memorial was in a horrible state of neglect. It must have been impressive in its day, but instead of the graves and tombstones visible in the photograph I had seen, it was littered with beer bottles and broken glass. I did encounter three young men there, one of whom managed a successful climb up the central relief. That made a better photograph than the memorial.

I was still fighting my Albanian cold (flu?) and Mostar was a pleasant enough place to wander around, drink coffee by the river or in the rather posh Bristol hotel, and take lots of photographs of the bridge. I walked through souvenir central, cobbled Kujundziluk, several times, but felt no impulse to buy anything. I preferred mosque-lined Brace Fejica, further north. My hotel, the Kriva Cuprija, was well-located along a side stream, but its restaurant was remarkably expensive (partly because of extra charges for bread, potatoes, service, etc) and I didn’t appreciate being constantly reminded to write a tripadvisor review.

I'd go along with your comments on Mostar. I managed to get out of the tourist zone too, into the parallel back streets where the war damage was shockingly still in evidence. Likewise the rows and rows of white grave markers in the cemeteries. I too am quite fascinated by Balkan history and would recommend those 2 books; the Rebecca West is a classic. I picked up a couple of lesser known ones in Sarajevo.
Looks like we also stayed at the same hotel. I quite liked the comfort of it and little nooks and crannies to sit in for a quiet read. Didn't eat in the restaurant and didn't get hassled to write to tripadvisor!
I left by bus to Dubrovnik and arrived by bus from Sarajevo. Looks like you are going in the opposite direction.

thursdaysd, I'm just seeing this for the first time. Thank you for posting so eloquently on this relatively unknown part of the world. We have come to love the Balkans and its people.

We entered Albania from the north and only got as far as Berat. I have to say I wasn't ready for some of the poverty in Albania - and the dust, dirt and packs of wild dogs - in Tirana, but despite the total language barrier, the Albanian people were wonderful and kind. (It's one of the few places on earth that loves Americans; quite a refreshing change). By the way, I loved the "More Donkeys than Cars" title; so true!

May I ask...did you consider visiting Kosovo? Like BiH, it suffered terribly as you know during the war and it has struggled, and is still struggling, to come back. Through my work we have developed very close friendships with some Kosovars and have visited it several times, even attending an Albanian wedding in Gjakova two summers ago!

As an aside, my daughter did an internship in the summer of 2010 in Sarajevo as part of her master's program in int'l human rights, and fell in love with it. She was able to travel into the country and the stories she told were fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking.

I wish I could talk to you about your travels in the Balkans because we've experienced so many of the same places. Thank you again for this wonderful report.

Ellen

Hi ellen! Yes, I did consider Kosovo, but I didn't go for two reasons. First, the logistics just didn't work out, especially as there seemed to be problems related to entering from Macedonia and subsequently entering Serbia. Second, the guidebooks made it sound really not ready for tourists, and something had to give.

I liked Sarajevo a lot, too, much more than Mostar. And certainly more than Belgrade...

I see from your profile that you're in upstate New York. Unfortunately I'm in NC, but if you post a comment at mytimetotravel.wordpress.com I can email you. I also see you're taking the Trans-Siberian next trip. So cool! I did that in 2004, if you're interested see http://wilhelmswords.com/rtw2004/

Yes, logistics are something to be reckoned with in the Balkans. I'll never forget planning for our first trip to Kosovo and Dubrovnik. As a fairly seasoned western European traveler, I kept looking for the train schedules and couldn't understand why they weren't appearing! That was just the beginning...not only lack of infrastructure, but political boundaries.

And you're right, Kosovo is working toward it, but isn't quite ready for prime time yet. My daughter couldn't believe the difference between Prishtina and Sarajevo, the latter being so much more liveable, attractive and tourist-ready.

I'll have to go back and look at my profile. A trans-Siberian trip is definitely on our list, but this year we've opted for something tamer; London and Iceland. After planning for the Balkans, this has been a piece of cake! I'll look at the site -thanks for giving it to me.