Kotor

There’s not much in Tivat, so today we took an excursion into Kotor, which is just around the corner and along the coast. To get there we needed to take public transport, which required us to walk 15 minutes up the road. W eassembled at 0830 and walked to the bus station, where the bus was, remarkably, on time. It’s a small bus, which is why Danijela didn’t want to catch it a couple of stops down the road, as it may hav been full by then. As it was it accommodated us comfortably.

One of the things that appears regularly in our blurbs about what to do in the day is “swap stories with locals”, maybe over a rakia or a coffee. The likelihood of this happening is remote but, lo and behold, Tim was engaged in conversation with the woman sat next to him for most of the journey! OK, turned out she wasn’t quite local, she was visiting from Turkey, but even so! We can’t wait to swap stories with someone who has swapped stories with a local!

The bus journey took an hour and by the time we got to Kotor the bus was packed with standing passengers. The road along the coast is very narrow and at some points there had to be some negotiation with oncoming traffic. When we got there, Danijela told us where and when to get the bus back to the hotel.

We had a few minutes before meeting our local guide, so we had a look around the market by the main entrance to the Old Town, the Marine Gate. We also found someone to sell us a gelato, which usefully broke a €50 note for us.

Sculptor: "Yes, of course I know what a lion looks like!"

We met our guide, Boyan, who showed us around the Old Town, stopping at various churches, the cathedral, school, clock tower leaning over because of earthquake, cat museum, etc. I’m sure it’s all very interesting but he didn’t fill us with enthusiasm and passion in the way that Clint had in Tirana. The town was quite crowded as there were not one, but two cruise ships moored at the dock, so there were tour groups a-plenty walking around the town. At the end of the tour, We went for gelato (again) with the rest of the group, before we all split up, as we had different plans for the day. Ours wasn’t too energetic: the temperature was climbing past 30°, so we stopped in a restaurant and had a simple lunch of brusketi (you’ll never guess what they are) and mussels.

The leaning clock tower

Narrow, winding streets

Cathedral of St Tryphon

Narrowest street in Kotor...about a metre wide

The cats museum. Contains cats

After lunch we toured the maritime museum, home to many models and paintings of old Montenegrin vessels. 

A very ornate timepiece

Model Montenegrin sailing ship

Globe, containing Nouvelle Hollande and Nouvelle Zelande, but no sign of Antarctica

We looked in a number of souvenir shops, but couldn’t find one that had t-shirts! Have t-shirts gone out of fashion? Eventually we found one that had a unique system: You selected your design from those shown, and they printed it on the spot for you. So now I have a Montenegro t-shirt, to prove I’ve been here.

It was approaching 2pm, so we decided to get the bus home. We waited at the stop…and waited. Danijela had said that they may not always be on time, but around 15 minutes late it show up…packed to the rafters! Well, not quite to the rafters, as many of the locals who’d been waiting squeezed on, but we didn’t fancy an hour of that. As we walked back to the Marine Gate we bumped into fellow Intrepideer Maureen, explained our failings, and between the three of us decided to get a taxi back to the hotel. This we did, and the driver took us by a different route, on a road that worked, and took less than 20 minutes. I feel there’s some work to be done by Intrepid to make this part of the trip a bit more tourist-friendly.

Tonight we’ll take the short walk down to the waterfront to find a suitable venue for dinner.

 

Fishte and Tivat

We left our hotel on time and headed to our last stop in Albania, an agrotourism farm, Mrizi i Zanave. They’ve taken a number of different concepts and combined them into one enterprise. There are ostriches, geese, and goats; they take milk from local producers and turn it into cheese; they make wine and rakia; they take all kinds of vegetable and fruit produce and pickle, dry or jam it; and they take pork and turn it into charcuterie. 

Mariella demonstrates wine

The wine cellar

Oo-er, missus! Look at all that sausage!

Jam, jam, jam jam...

The cheese room

Our guide, Mariella, took us around the factory rooms, showing us cheeses in various stages of maturation, as well as sausages and hams, and the smoking rooms. No, not for cigars. 

Afterwards we had a little bit of time as they waited for the lunch service, which started promptly at 12 noon. The lunch was a lavish production of just about everything that they had to offer. We started with a  taste of rose water – exactly what it sounds like, rose petals infused into water. Fortunately without adding sugar, which would have made it too sickly, but instead like Turkish Delight without the sweetness. We had charcuteries and cheese, pickled vegetables, other vegetables including stuffed courgette flowers; mystery meat (may have been goat), beef, and pork skewers. Just as we were saying “we’re stuffed”, they cleared it all away and brought puddings – cheesecake, fruit, chocolate fondant and gelato. The gelato included one made with pine syrup – made by adding a load of sugar to pine cones, then letting it infuse. Not one I’ll be trying at home, tbh. 

We left Albania behind us and crossed the border into Montenegro. Danijela told us on the way that we would be leaving behind “funny money” and entering the Euro zone. Montenegro is not officially a member of the euro, but has universally adopted it anyway. What we were also leaving behind, she told us, was the cheap prices we’d got used to in Macedonia and Albania. Montenegro and Croatia would be exhibiting more “modern” pricing.

We arrived at Hotel Helada at around 6:00pm, so after a quick check-in and moving in to our room, reassembled downstairs for an orientation walk in Tivat. This basically involved taking us down to the waterfront and walking along, pointing out an ATM for those all-important euros, and then some of us had a light dinner at a waterside restaurant, Bokka whilst the rest continued their perambulations. There isn’t much else to Tivat, so tomorrow we’ll be exploring the much larger settlement along the road, Kotor. Why aren’t we staying there then? Danijela explained that the two hotels they’d used in previous seasons had received negative feedback – being too far from the centre, or being too old-fashioned (lack of lifts etc.) and noisy for the one in the Old Quarter. There’s no pleasing some people! Now they’ve decided it’s better to stay in a more modern establishment along the coast instead.

We then headed back to the hotel, taking careful note of where to turn to get back and forth from the waterfront. There’s very little beach as such, and most of it seems to belong to one hotel, so we won’t be doing much beaching here.

 

Leaves And Pyramids

We have a free day in Tirana today. We are away from home for about a month and it may surprise you to learn that we do not travel with a month’s worth of clothing. Today was laundry day. Fortunately there’s a brand new 24 hour laundromat just 200m from our hotel, so after breakfast we took our washing. Unlike in Italy where we faced a similar challenge, this one has helpful instructions in English. The money change machine was unfortunately not working, but we found a grumpy exchange office that gave us 5 ALL100 coins in exchange for a note.

Objective achieved, we then planned an itinerary. First stop was Bunk’Art2, a former bunker which has been converted to a museum showing the history of Albania in the 20^th century. Itt all started out fine and dandy, but then took a turn for the worse under King Ahmet Zogu, before being invaded by the Italians (again!) in World War 2. Where it got really dark was the communist regime under Hoxha from 1945 to 1991. Albanians don’t shy away from their history; only by showing what it was like can they then move on from it.

Inside the bunker

We took a break for lunch at the same place we went yesterday – Café Botanica. Yes, unadventurous, I know, but it was handy. We then took ourselves to the House Of Leaves, the former centre for the Sigurimi, the Albanian secret police; they spied on everyone, with bugs, cameras, films, and intimidation. It’s quite remarkable the lengths they took to spy on their own people. According to Hoxha, private conversations were the property of the state. In what I can only assume is an overload of irony, photography is forbidden inside the museum. There were lists and statistics produced by the Sigurimi, but more importantly there were films of survivors of the prison and torture camps, giving testimony to the conditions they suffered; as well as from ordinary citizens, telling what life was like without being in prison (not much better, in case you hadn’t guessed).

We cheered ourselves up afterwards with a visit to the Orthodox Cathedral of Resurrection, which was much nicer than the American church we visited yesterday (the one with the dodgy window).

A much nicer church

Our final stop for the afternoon was the Pyramid. This was originally a memorial for Hoxha and family, but has since been remodelled and now serves an entirely different purpose. There are 120 steps to get to the top as you literally stomp down on communism. The view from the top, unfortunately, is of Tirana, which is not the most edifying of spectacles.

View from the base: 114 steps to go!

Zero steps to go!

 

Namazgah mosque

Tirana skyline

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the park we'd passed yesterday, to take pictures of statues of Stalin and Lenin.

Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

Tonight we’re going up the Sky Tower, a revolving restaurant with views of the city, for cocktails.

 

Tiranë

We set off at the usual 9am start, and drove to Tiranë, as they style it. It’s not a long drive, around two hours, and we did it non-stop. On the way we passed a NATO airfield, which has a MiG-19 on the roundabout outside.

We’d arrived a little after 11:00, well before our check-in time, so we wandered the vicinity of our hotel fairly aimlessly for a bit, found a snack place for a spot of lunch, before checking in properly to the Metro Hotel. All this not doing anything is really tiring, so we had a rest, then reassembled at 4:00pm for our walking tour of Tiranë with the improbably-named Clinteast. Apparently his mother had a crush on Clint Eastwood at the time, so named him after the actor.

Clint, as he enjoined us to call him, had given up working as a programmer to become a tour guide. He took us around the city, regaled us with stories about the history of the country and city; taught us some important Albanian words which we forgot immediately; pointed out features of the new architecture which is springing up everywhere; and generally entertained us. We saw the statue of Stalin (not many remain, as they were all torn down when Enver Hoxha had his famous falling-out with the Soviet leader.) This one was kept in a forgotten storeroom, and rediscovered when communism ended after the revolution in 1991. It’s currently in a park near our hotel.

We also saw Hoxha’s villa in Tiranë, a piece of the Berlin Wall, one of the ubiquitous bunkers - the paranoid Hoxha was convinced that either China or the USA was going to invade, so built bunkers all around the country. We’ve seen quite a few already. There are, by some estimates, around 750,000 of them, although the official records show only 173,000.

Hoxha's villa

Genuine piece of the Berlin Wall. The reverse side is blank.

A two-man bunker. In a park.

We walked by the Tiranë pyramid, which was an old memorial to Hoxha, but has since been recovered and re-purposed. Clint said that climbing the 120 stairs on the outside symbolised walking all over communism. We may do it tomorrow.

We visited St Paul’s Cathedral, the first catholic church gifted to the newly-independent Albania, then walked through the remains of Tiranë castle, and onwards to Skanderbeg Square, where we (once more) heard the story of Gjergj Kastrioti, also known as Skanderbeg, Albania’s national hero. Clint pointed out features of his statue: his horse has one foot off the ground, meaning he didn’t die in battle - that’s two feet off the ground. All four grounded means death by natural causes, old age etc. The horse’s tail points downward, signifying he never lost in battle. And he’s carrying a sword, signifying that he is a warrior.

 

St. Paul's Cathedral. Yes, they really did make the window in that shape!

We also noted the Ethem Bey mosque , significant because it (a) wasn’t pulled down by Hoxha, but used as a store room for animals, and (b) has depictions of Albanian cities on the walls rather than the usual abstract designs.

 One of Clint’s little gems was about the number of times Albania has been invaded by Italians: three – the Romans, the Byzantines, and Mussolini’s fascists. He then said that as revenge, Albanians have taken three things from Italy and now beat the Italians at their own game: Albanian pizza is better than Italian, Albanian coffee is better – and they linger over it, rather than rushing. They also serve cappuccino after 5pm, just to annoy the Italians. And finally, they’ve taken Italy’s bad driving and turned it into an artform – it’s even worse! He said that cars tooting their horns was the second national anthem of Albania!

We finished up in the square, and then Danijela enticed us to Cafe Botanica with promises of beer and truffle fries. We lingered over our drinks, and then retraced our steps back to the hotel, stopping at a restaurant for some traditional Albanian cuisine. I chose…poorly. Think I’ll stick to pizza tomorrow.

 

Alpeta

This morning we had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel. Being a family establishment, there’s no menu, you just get what you’re given…which turns out to be pretty much what we’ve been having anyway, typical Albanian breakfast of cheese, bread, tomatoes, cucumber, olives and eggs – in this case, omelette, which was entirely acceptable. Also, a plate of cherries, which were delicious.

We had a free morning, so we wandered into town. The picturesqueness soon disappeared, so we turned back, crossed the river, and explored the far side further…along the way bumping into some of our fellow Intrepideers. We continued up the hill to the church of St Thomas, but the old man by the door wanted €1 which we didn’t have, so we took pictures of the bells and left. We’ve pretty much done the Old Town now, so we stopped for a coffee and crossed over to our side of the river. There we bumped into Carrie and decided to get some lunch at The Friendly House, which has a terrace overlooking the street. We had musaka and salad, with local beer.

At 1:30pm we assembled again to be driven to the village of Roshnik, for a wine tasting at Alpeta vineyard. We met our guide Adrian, who told us about the history of wine in Albania. Unlike most countries, it doesn’t go back very far, because there was no private property under the communist regime. Wine production really got going once the regime had collapsed, and Alpeta is one of the oldest, starting with just eight hectares. Nowadays they have vines growing in small blocks all around the area.

 Adrian gave us a run-down on the wines and raki that we would be drinking, then took us indoors to our tasting table. We tried the white wine, mainly made from Pulez, a local varietal. As I provided my critique Adrian was clearly listening and assessed me for later purposes. We also tried their rosé, made from 80% winter (a late-ripening varietal), merlot and moscat, with a short skin exposure; and their red, made from more familiar varietals - 65% merlot and 35% cabernet sauvignon. OK, Albanian wine isn’t going to set the world on fire, but they were all very drinkable.

Adrian explains it all

But really, we were here for the raki. Raki is the distilled spirit made from the fermented grapes. Unlike many similar drinks like grappa, they don’t use the leftover grapes (pomace or marc) but use the same stuff they make wine from. As Adrian explained, they don’t add any sugar or even yeast, relying on the wild yeast on the grape skins. Again, we had three types to drink – first, a regular raki, then one made exclusively from Moscat grapes; the third was one aged in French oak barrels for nine months so took on colour and flavour like a whisky or brandy.

 

But here’s where the twist came in! In order to drink raki, there are rules: the must be a dollibash, a table leader, to give the toasts, and…guess who? Reader, I was that dollibash. Adrian poured the drinks, enjoining us to say “Stop!” when it reached the preferred level in the shot glass. Some of us went for full glasses, others just a splash, as it has to be drunk in one go. My training as a Toastmaster kicked in and I raised a first glass of raki, and toasted Methya, who’d celebrated a birthday yesterday. The second, our glorious leader, Danijela. And the third, our host, Adrian.

Adrian had promised me a surprise as dollibash, and after we’d finished the toasts, he told me what it was: to lead the party in singing a song. Again, rules applied: no national anthems, no Happy Birthday, no Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. What to sing? I went to the obvious, and led the table in a rousing rendition of a song everyone knows, and can join in:

Mamma, just killed a man, Put a gun against his head, Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead

Ah, you know the one!

After a couple more shots, we tried verse two, and then it all started to fall apart. But you get the idea.

After a quick visit to the shop (I bought a book of Albanian toasts and a small bottle of raki) we reboarded our bus. Up till now, our driver has been playing us his music on the speakers, but this time we connected our bluetooths to the bus and took turns playing songs from our phones. Tim, Carrie and myself were the DJs, and tomorrow we have a two hour drive to Tirana to entertain our fellow passengers! I’ve promised Maureen, our Australian, some Midnight Oil.

Later tonight we’re going up on the balcony for further drinks and nibbles with Danijela and the rest of our group. Should be fun!

Berat

Today was a longish journey to the town of Berat. We had a quick stop at the end of Lake Ohrid to see where the lake runs out into a river, which heads off to Albania…also our destination. We crossed the border, then stopped for coffee and had to pay in Albanian Lek – no cards taken. 

It was around 1:30pm by the time we arrived, so we checked in to the Hotel Usomi – a family-run hotel in the picturesque old town. We took Danijela’s recommendation and immediately repaired across the road for a nourishing pizza and salad in the rooftop bar of the more modern hotel 100m down the road, and, suitably refreshed (I also tried a local beer), headed first to the supermarket and then to explore a little of the town. 

Some of the 1,000 windows

We’d passed a picturesque bridge on the way in so we made our way back down towards that, along the way snapping the local architecture. Berat is known as “The city of 1,000 windows” and I think you can see why.

Gorica bridge

From the bridge we could see the Old Town. We crossed over and walked up the other side, looking up old alleyways (most of which contained restaurants and hotels). The Intrepid blurb describes it as “the rarely visited town of Berat”, but given the number of restaurants and hotels, and English, American and French voices we heard as we walked, I’m calling shenanigans. It does seem quite geared up for tourists.

At 5pm we assembled with our driver to go up to Berat Castle, which (unsurprisingly) sits atop a hill overlooking the town. There we met our guide, Eric, who told us the history of the castle, the three walls built at different stages; and heard about the Illyrian kings, and other historical stuff. The castle has since had a number of houses built inside the wall, and once housed 2,400 people – 20 per house! – but these days occupancy is a more civilised four per house. The houses do occasionally come up for sale and Eric told us that there are currently one Greek and three Italian owners of houses, mainly used for holidays although one family lives there permanently.

There were also around 40 of churches in the castle walls, although most are now in disrepair. We visited some that have impressive frescos, done by Onufri the Cypriot. During the communist era, religion was outlawed and Albania became the world’s only officially atheist state. Many of the churches were converted to other uses, such as restaurants, house, and even storerooms. Most churches throughout the country were destroyed by Enver Hoxha, but in Berat they were preserved as “cultural monuments”.

Roman Emperor Constanine

Frescoes

Intrepideers

At the top we could see most of the new town, which is architecture of an unedifying communist type. We could barely see the Old Town as it was directly beneath us.    

After the tour ended we stayed at the castle to have dinner at one of the restaurants. This consisted of the usual mixture of Greek-inspired foods – Greek salad, grilled veges, chicken skewers, moussaka, feta, bruschetta, and lamb; followed by ice cream.

After dinner we drove back down the hill and back to the hotel for an early night.

 

Rain Day

As predicted, the following day the weather turned. Our guide, Danijela, had previously opined that she’d never visited Lake Ohrid without it raining – it has its own microclimate. We waited for the rain to stop, and in a brief lull headed out to do some shopping. Nicola was after some of the famous Ohrid Pearls, and, ignoring the blandishments of the two old-established jewellers, found some to her liking in another shop.

We lunched on pizza and Macedonian salad (a staple in these parts), then continued on around the coastal path to find the church of St Jovan, or “John” as we know him; also the John who wrote the Book of Revelation. For the princely sum of MKD300 we could have looked inside, but there’s not actually much to see, and we didn’t have any MKD. The rain was settling in for the afternoon by this point, so we trudged damply back to our hotel to dry out, and await this evening’s entertainment: a dinner in the oldest restaurant in Lake Ohrid, appropriately named Antiko. 

St Jovan's Church

 Lake Ohrid is famed for its trout. So much so, they were overfished, and these days are protected so it's illegal to fish for them in the lake; these days they're all farmed. They're the speciality of the restaurant, so we had some. It was delicious. The restaurant is decorated in the antique style, but in fact only dates back to 1988. Nevertheless, we enjoyed it, with some Macedonian wine to wash it down. Tomorrow, we head to a new country!