Hello from Ryanair (operated by Buzz!). Hannah and I are on the way back to Madrid via Marseille after an amazing week in Albania. I was very excited about the fact that I Wizz-ed in and have Buzz-ed out, and so far, the European budget airlines have treated me relatively well on this adventure.
I started out staying the night at the airport hotel in Tirana before picking up the rental car and heading south to meet Hannah and Sophie. Because it is still warming up in the north, we dedicated our six days to traveling through southern Albania. Coming off of driving on the (wrong) left side of the road in Scotland, the driving in Albania felt more familiar, although the frequency of donkeys, goats, people, and random trucks pulling in front of me made the driving anything but boring. About a half hour away from our first night destination, Gjirokaster, Sophie called me to say that their bus had dropped them on the side of the highway about 10 miles outside the city center rather than downtown. Luckily, it was on my route, and twenty minutes later I spotted them! I have to say, “highway” and “city center” are strong words for what we encountered.
We arrived at our Airbnb, and I was shocked to hear Spanish from our host as she greeted us coming up over the hill. She’s Venezuelan but married an Albanian man and now lives in Gjirokaster! She showed us around the stone house we had picked out. It was a gorgeous and surprisingly well-stocked Airbnb. We dropped our stuff before heading back down to the car and setting off for our first adventure. Stop number one on Sophie’s masterfully crafted itinerary was the Blue Eye. About an hour and a half down the road from Gjirokaster, we drove up and over a mountain into the valley before stopping for lunch. It was our easiest meal out, as Passover hadn’t started yet. I ordered a lamb skewer, which I thought was going to be more of a kebab situation, but ended up being a plate of many different parts of grilled lamb on the bone. It was very tasty, but a lot of meat. That said, we had a major win as one of my leftover bones turned into our shank bone for the seder plate that night.
The Blue Eye is a gorgeous lake feature down this paved trail. It’s a natural cold spring and while the sources were unclear about exactly why it was blue, we really enjoyed it. After seeing the Eye, we started back towards Gjirokaster and made a stop at Big Market, our first Albanian grocery store. I think Big Market was the worst grocery store we stopped into, but it did have most of what we needed for seder. Sophie was imagining a baked fish dinner, maybe with some rice, but we soon discovered that there was little fish to be had in any grocery store besides shellfish. Apparently, it was not fish season yet in Gjirokaster. We quickly pivoted and got all the ingredients for quinoa salad, shakshuka, and roasted potatoes. Horseradish eluded us (both me in Madrid, and in Albania), so we substituted our maror for spicy mustard. The grocery store didn’t sell any produce, but they had an affiliated?? lady selling produce directly outside. We paid in Albanian Lek, as most grocery stores (and stores for that matter) didn’t accept cards.
We made it back to the Airbnb, and I squeezed the rental car into the tiny garage before we started the preparations for seder before sundown. I brought Haggadahs printed in Madrid, and Sophie added some notes to them before seder started. By the time the sun set, we were ready! Sophie led a lovely seder, and besides the oddity of the spicy mustard, we were able to pull in our different family traditions quite authentically. We tucked in for bed, getting ready for our first full day in Gjirokaster. The next morning, we started out by visiting the Gjirokaster Castle. The castle has a fascinating history from Ottoman Empire war lords to more modern military prison usages. It had stunning views of the town and the surrounding mountains and river valley. It has also been converted into a military museum featuring an American fighter jet that landed in Albania by mistake in 1957. Now quite poorly upkept in its outdoor museum location, the plane was kept by Albania after they returned the airman who intended to complete his training flight in Italy.
After our castle exploration, we headed down to our Airbnb for lunch before setting out on an adventure to see the sulfur hot springs. We drove in the opposite direction of the Blue Eye before coming to our destination. Here we began developing one of our theme phrases for the trip: “Albania – they’re working on it!” The sulfur springs had a beautiful parking area, which was still very much under construction, so we joined the rest of the cars in the mud patch beside the entrance. The cold drizzle we’d had most of the day was turning us off of swimming, but we were wearing our swimsuits already, so we kept going. Approaching the hot springs, I was surprised by how built up they were! There were stone pools filled with beautiful (warm) blue water just over a tall stone bridge. We crossed the bridge, dropped our clothes, and entered the pools. Despite the weather, it was relatively busy at the baths. We popped between the different ones and enjoyed ourselves.
Returning back to Gjirokaster, we opted for a different grocery store, this time heading to Stop and Shop (no relation to the American company aside from the upside-down US flag hanging outside, and the right side up flag hanging inside). We had dinner back at the Airbnb before turning in for our last night in Gjirokaster. The next morning, we packed up, loaded the car, and headed into the town center to walk around. Hannah had been eyeing an Albanian flag hat, which she bought and proudly wore for the rest of the trip.
On the road, we headed to Himare, our destination for the next evening. Transitioning from the mountains to the coast, we were greeted by stunning views of the ocean. In Himare, we had lunch in town before heading up a rather treacherous hill to get to our Airbnb. The hosts lived in Munich, but their parents lived in the adjoining apartment and were incredibly sweet. The Himare water was a beautiful blue, and we had a lovely view over the ocean from the porch of the apartment. We got a sliver of sun and decided to head out to the cliffside beach. After a slight misadventure with a massive traffic jam, we made it to the parking lot, again, “parking lot” is a strong word, and walked the twenty minutes down to the canyon beach.
The water here, too, was a gorgeous blue, and since it was late in the afternoon, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. Hannah and I jumped in for a chilly swim while Sophie diligently took photos. After that, we headed back to Himare for dinner. Our Himare apartment had the least capable kitchen for cooking, so things were looking a bit bleak at the grocery store. We arrived at Matzah Pizza in the toaster oven, canned tuna with “Chicken Sauce” (think Chik-fil-a sauce), and a Greek salad with some tasty feta. All things considered, it was a pretty great dinner, though we agreed it was the peak of our Passover-Albania-Kosher dining challenges.
The next morning, our Airbnb host’s mom knocked on the door with some delicious smelling cake, and we didn’t have the heart (and she didn’t have the English) for us to say no. We didn’t end up eating it, but we did our best to find it a new home. Setting out from Himare, we drove along what is known as the Albanian Riviera through Vlore. This was a peak “Albania –they’re working on it” drive, as the road was quite actively under construction while we drove on it. We found perhaps the longest tunnel I’ve driven through, and as we drove past Vlore, we stopped for a massive herd of sheep to cross the highway. Arriving into our next and final town, Berat, we found ourselves a little skeptical. The town also had a castle, but as we approached the back side of it, I at least, was a little confused why so many people (both on the internet and in Albania) had encouraged us to go here. We had another tricky parking situation but arrived at our luxuriously large Airbnb called Villa Rosa. We dropped our stuff and headed out on foot up the hill to the castle. Soon, we began to see why Berat was such a cool place to be.
This castle was less of a museum and more of a small town in and of itself full of restaurants and small stores. We found a restaurant for lunch which met our list of dietary restrictions, and I got a very odd look when I asked for my meal without pita. “But it’s bread!?” the waiter exclaimed. After lunch, we huddled under the restaurant roof for a few minutes as a random rain shower passed over. The sky returned to its sunny state for the rest of the day giving us excellent views over the mountains on each side of the castle. We climbed (literally) up and over the walls and ruins seeing old churches and mosques among the castle walls.
Albania has a fascinating mix of Islam and Christianity with the two religions making up a roughly 50/50 split in the country. Most of the towns had large mosques and churches side by side. Looking down from our castle perch, we saw a handful of mosques and churches along the river of Berat.
We took a slightly off-road way down the castle hill to the grocery store, but succeeded in securing food for our increasingly creative dinners. We headed back to the Airbnb to cook, read, and rest.
The next morning, we set out to see a waterfall near a town called Bogove. Arriving at the waterfall, a kid we decided was maybe 15 stopped us on the road and pointed to the dirt patch, which was, of course, the waterfall parking lot. He asked to give me change in euros (we gave him Albanian leks) because there weren’t any banks in Bogove for him to exchange the euros someone else had given him. Thus, I earned the trip nickname, Bank of Bogove. We set out on the walk up to the waterfall and, before long, came across it. Nestled behind a rocky hill, the waterfall is gorgeous and cascades into a 35-foot-deep blue pool. Hannah braved the water, and Sophie looked over at me as she jumped in and said that I was on duty to go get her if she drowned. “I know,” I said, already planning where to leave the car keys. Luckily, Hannah didn’t drown, yay, and we headed into Bogove for lunch together.
It was, apparently, fish season in Bogove, as the waitress explained, they caught the fish in the river we were looking over. We each had a delicious full trout for lunch before making our way back into Berat. We drove back through the town center, dropped the car, and walked down the hill again to explore. Berat is known as the city of a thousand windows, and while city is again a very strong word, the buildings are full of beautiful windows.
The next morning, our last day in Albania, we got on the road for the capital, Tirana. We tried and failed to park at various places downtown but got a lovely driving tour in the meantime of the large mosque and church downtown. Tirana is a lively city, and while there weren’t goats on the road, it was still an adventure driving around. We dropped Sophie near her Airbnb for the night before Hannah and I headed out to the airport.
It was, all in all, an amazing trip to a country I had never thought I would be in during my year in Europe. But I am so glad I had the chance to explore it, and even more happy to have spent the time with Sophie and Hannah doing it. We have more of the Balkans to explore including Northern Albania, and perhaps when we return, they will have worked on it some more!
Sending my very best to you all and looking forward to some friends visiting me in Madrid these next few weekends!
Abe Tolkoff 