Heading from Tirana to Berat & Gjirokaster-Albania
3.9.22
Time to leave our fab €34 for 2 nights apartment. I will fondly remember the incredibly fluffy, softest ever pink tea towel, the hugest fan, the smallest cups, the 1950s salt and the comfiest bed.
We made our way to Meridian hotel to meet our hire car man for 10am.
Doesn’t bode well.
It did give me time to get this photo though.
So sad that there are still people in the world who need to rummage through bins to survive. We have them in Türkiye too.
In fact John has shocking wombling tendencies and could well be collecting items for his tat bag in years to come.
Our car turned up at 10.45am,the guy was so nice we couldn’t be annoyed. We took photos of scratches and he’s not bothered about anything unless serious damage and don’t worry if we return it empty!
He said the Police won’t bother us because they don’t speak English.
We dropped him home having a nice chat about the recent media stories about 1000s of Albanians turning up in the UK to start drug gangs etc. As suspected, gross exaggeration, they want jobs and higher salaries and all nationalities do terrible things etc.
He said there are so many Turkish people living here and they view them as their brothers as they lived together in the Ottoman times and have a very similar culture of friendliness and generosity.
Getting fuel was funny, the fuel cap opener is carefully hidden on the inside of the door panel, it took a while to find it.
Diesel is £1.71 or 35.6tl a litre, more than Türkiye, less than UK. Very few places in Albania accept cards, including this petrol station.
Feeling very hungry we just had to stop here.
A quick glance at the menu made us a bit anxious so we scuttled away, although the peshk krap did sound tempting.
At a small roundabout some time later were 4 byrek cafes, or börek as we’re used to saying. We always assume we don’t like it. In the absence of anything else we ordered 2 meat byrek, a black coffee and the cheesiest lumpiest equivalent of ayran which they proudly told us was homemade. I must remember to specify americano.
We’ve decided we do like börek. Grand total just under £2.
We parked up on arrival in Berat and admired the beautiful City of 1000 Windows.
So much for the Police leaving us alone! Within 3 hours of getting the car we got our first parking ticket. In fact Johns very first ever ticket. We drove up and down looking for the Traffic Police, who had let us over a crossing earlier.
It would appear that we had parked facing the wrong way. We noticed that all the non Albanian cars had no ticket, so hoped they would let us off. We couldn’t find them and had no idea how to pay our 1000 lek fine, about £9.
We messaged Ilir for advice, he says it has to be paid at a post office and will be 800 if we pay within 5 days.
We continued onwards to Gjirokaster, around 2 and a half hours away. The scenery along the way was stunning, too hard to capture through a car window and the photos I took just don’t do it justice.
En route I booked a guest house for tonight.
Short version.. Lets just say we climbed up narrow cobbled streets and passed the men with the 3 donkeys and 3 other men sitting on a wall 3 times. We were almost on first name terms by the end.
Eventually ignoring the fact google wanted us to turn left into a non existant road, we found what appeared to be Yuris Guest House despite the lack of signage and delapidated appearance. The owners are out of town but said we could park there. After sending photos they confirmed that was in fact the grey door they said we could park by. If it wasn’t for the amazing breakfast reviews we may have left.
All stress disappeared when we saw this beautiful place.
We ventured down the cobbles, flip flops weren’t really my best choice, to the pretty town and along to Snack Bar Simple which has a small menu but great reviews.
After very good fresh home made food, and getting the last 2 chunks of trilece, we did a bit more wandering around this gorgeous place, now lit up and buzzing, a bit of Albanian dancing and a climb up the cobbles to Yuris.
Never let outside impressions fool you. Our room is immaculate and stylish.
Within seconds the bedside cabinet, the crisp white sheets, the linen cabinet cover, side of the bed and floor were splattered with milk. Some numpty had put the carton in his suitcase, which he later placed up the other way and it was leaking. To make matters worse he stood on the milk and made the squeaky clean floor black.
His pants are now all over the bathroom, but unclear as to whether it’s milk or condensation from the frozen water. I guess we’ll know in a few days time if they smell like this mornings ayran.
Watch this space…
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