5.9.22

Our Wendy House was surprisingly comfy, very peaceful.

John expected to keep banging his head but didn’t happen once.

I thanked Den and told him how lovely it was once we got over our initial surprise. He was so chuffed.

I’ve decided Den was deprived of having a dolls house when he was a kid, everything was mini, little sofas made of pallets, little tables and signs.

We made our way to Himara to see the old town and castle. I knew my apples would come in handy and a mummy and baby donkey were very happy to see us in the middle of the road. The locals looked bemused.

Cheese byreks and fruit yogurts purchased and looking forward to what today would bring.

We took the extremely bendy coast road. It was about an hour and a half in theory, but we had to keep stopping at the photo points.

The castle ruins aren’t amazing, but loved the old houses, the church and the views were spectacular.

Our next destination was Gjipe canyon. It’s approached from the main road by a long single track road with passing bays and the beach is supposedly one of the most beautiful in Albania.

Abbreviated story of the next set of events…

John had a massive row with the car park lady about us not technically being in the car  park, so why should we pay. GO she shouted, no you go said  John. It escalated.. Anyway we parked along a but, when they spotted us the guy said we have to pay evreywhere . So we left. I was so disappointed. John turned off so we could go to Dhermi beach. I didn’t want to go to Dhermi beach. I wanted to see the canyon and go to the beach there. We ended up having a massive row. The outcome after John calmed down about the lady being rude to him was that we drove back and paid the 300 lek, apologised to the man, made friends and had a fab rest of the day.

The guide books tell you NOT to attempt the drive down to the beach without a 4×4 and it was obvious why. The walk down took about 20 minutes.

After a stroll,a very good espresso and beer, we swam in the crystal clear water, which was colder than we’re used to in Turkey but so gorgeous. Today has been very hot.

We walked back up in our wet beach wear which seemed to be the norm.

We decided whilst here to follow the sign to a very uninspiring monastery that was nothing like the photo.

We booked somewhere in Vlore to stay for tonight, an hour and a half away, although actually only 68 km away. The very dramatic high mountain bends and photo stops explained that!

I sounded like a broken record today, oohing and ahhing and saying it’s so beautiful.

It wasn’t easy to find our next overnight stop. No one seems to deal in door numbers or signs. A nice lady pointed us in the right direction.

Booking. Com have it listed as a whole apartment with 5 rooms at just £12 a night. The description and the room do not match, but its freshly painted, very clean, has a balcony to hang wet swim stuff and a leaky shower.

It was gone 7pm so we just left our bags and went off to find food. John found a traditional lokanta type place 30 minutes walk away. We had moussaka, another aubergine dish, 2 large meatballs and water. Luckily they never brought the rice or beer because the bill was £15, a lot for what we had but absolutely delicious.

We rounded off the evening with a creme caramel ice cream and popped into Big Supermarket for a bottle of water, which turned into a bottle of water, some Baileys type liquor and a huge bottle of beer, a bargain at 167tl, or £7.85.

The walls are paper thin in this building, next door sounded like they were showering in our room, the room across the hall had his tv so loud I’m sure they could hear it in Corfu and people do like to bang doors.

John fell asleep while all this was going on, exhausted from mountain bends I’m sure.

Not sure of tomorrow’s plans but think we’re likely to have enough time to go north, but whether we can resolve the logistics of the Komani lake journey is unclear.

More research needed.