Ksamillionaires

Okay, take two. I lost the first draft of this thanks to the dodgy blogger app and dodgy wifi connection sigh. 

So, we left Drymades on Friday and headed back down the coast to the south-western tip of Albania at a place called Ksamil, for a little culture and some more beach time. Ksamil was beautiful enough, its bay dotted with small islands and the considerably bigger island of Corfu close enough on the horizon to see individual houses on its shores. However, it proved not to be our favourite of the beaches we visited on the Albanian riviera. 

Our hearts sank a bit when we first glimpsed the beach - it was packed with sunloungers, full of noisy children, and seemed to consist of a thin layer of sand over a strip of concrete jutting out towards the water. After the beautiful beaches of Himare and Drymsdes, it was a bit of a letdown. However, we walked a bit further around the coast away from the town centre and managed to find some private beaches that were a lot less crowded and artificial. 

The main problem with beaches - and many other places - in Albania is that they seem to think relaxing on the beach is best done with a background of pumping dance music. This is not a sentiment I share. Every little individual beach in Ksamil (separated by man-made rock formations) played its own horrible Wagnerian-length dance compositions over tinny loudspeakers. We even went past a fricking children's playground at around 10 pm which was still blasting out the tunes. Drymades beach did have music as well, but where we were it was quieter and it was 90s music, which at least is "my era". And yes, that does make me sound like a grumpy old person complaining about that racket the young people are in to these days. I refuse to believe anyone can enjoy dance music without copious amounts of drink or drugs though. Ugh, I sound like my Dad complaining about me playing Radiohead in the house ;)

En route to Ksamil - maybe Borsch beach (mmm, Borsch)

Ksamil selfie

Ksamil beach with Corfu in the background

View from the private beach we were on

We ended up leaving Ksamil a day earlier than planned and heading to Gjirokastra. We have been booking hotels a day at a time, leaving us the flexibility to move from Himare to Drymades and cut our Ksamil leg short. It's worked out pretty well. First though, we visited the ancient city of Butrint, next time on Gwan's Albanian Adventures...

Beach bums

On Tuesday, we set out from Berat for the drive to Himare. This involved crossing over the Llogara Pass, a pass over 1000 metres high in the Ceraunian Mountains. Apparently Julius Caesar landed nearby and chased Pompey through the mountains here at a neighbouring pass that still bears his name. It's twisty and turney, but speaking for my non-driving self, less harrowing than the road to Berat, as the road itself is pretty well-maintained. 

Navigating obstacles in rural Albania

View from atop the Pass

Mount Çika, I think

Looking back up at the road we came down from Drymades

In Himarë, our hotel was on the main road, just a hop skip and a jump away from the hotel's private beach. I don't entirely agree with the concept of having private beaches everywhere and having to pay to use loungers and umbrellas, but it's undeniably quite nice to have these facilities once you're there - some places, waiters will even bring drinks right to your deckchair, although the concept of cocktails doesn't seem to have saturated the Albanian market yet, unfortunately. People often wander past selling things too, most commonly popcorn, which seems a very odd choice of beach food. 

View from our hotel in Himare

We bummed about in Himare for a day and a half, and then drove back up the way we came to Drymades, and bummed around there. Himare is a nice little town, smaller than it looks in the way in, and pretty uncrowded, with a good selection of restaurants, bars and small shops. Drymades is even more picturesque and tranquil, but with relatively little in the way of shops and resturants. We ran out of money and had to wait until we drove back through Himare because there are no ATMs in Drymades or nearby Dhermi. Both are really nice, it depends whether or not you want things slightly livelier in Himare or more peaceful (we were also not right on the beach or road in Drymades).  

I have so many gorgeous photos from the three days, hard to pick! We had a great time swimming, sunbathing and eating fresh fish. 

Himare

Himare

This was the view at sunset from our waterfront restaurant where, due to a misunderstanding, we ended up with an entree and three mains between the two of us, including a plate of squid and two whole sea bass. With drinks as well and a tip, the bill came to about 23.50€ - unbelievable. 

We found some cocktails!

One of the best things about Drymades beach was the crystal clear water. I was hypnotised watching the small waves crash and recede over the pebbles like a pulse. The bad part was that it was soooo difficult to get in and out of the sea. The pebbles were fairly sharp and your feet tended to sink into them, and I kept getting knocked off balance by the waves. At points, I literally had to crawl up the beach to try and escape. Not good 

Drymades beach

The amazing clear water and treacherous rocks 

I could post a billion more photos, it's so pretty, but I'm not sure decrepit Albanian wifi can even cope with this many, so I'll leave it there. 

In the White City

After our hair-raising drive on Sunday, we arrived in Berat in the centre of the country. Berat is known as a museum city - a term bestowed by Enver Hoxha, thus protecting the historic buildings in the communist period. Today, the old city is a world heritage site. As with the rest of Albania, the city had a tumultuous history, with long periods under Byzantine and Ottoman rule. Its hilltop castle complex dates (in its current incarnation) back to the 13th century, whereas its striking old town was built unde the Ottoman Empire. 

This photo makes it clear why Berat is also known as the "White City" or the "City of a Thousand Windows". The city is divided in two, this is looking across at the old town or Mangalemi quarter from the other side of the river. On the top of the hill, you can just see the castle. Yes, we had to walk all the way up there!

View from the restaurant where we had dinner. 

One of berat's steep cobbled streets. 

Rain was forecast on Monday afternoon, so we made sure to be out early to see the castle before the weather turned. I know it's about as hot in Paris, London and Brussels right now as it is here, so you can all empathise with hot much we were melting as we made our way up the hill. 

Looking down around halfway up the road to the castle. Those cobblestones were really uneven and sometimes slippery as well, making the walk much more difficult. In fact, coming down might have been just as hard as going up, since I was terrified of slipping over the whole time. 

The castle is actually more like a citadel, with walls enclosing a mini city which, even today, still houses people and businesses. There's not all that much to see in terms of visiting the castle, no big fortress or palace and most of the historic churches are kept closed and have a rather dilapidated air. We were disappointed that, being a Monday, the ethnographic museum (further down the hillside) and cathedral, home to a museum of icon painting, were both closed. However, the trip up the hill is more than worth it for the breathtaking views. 

I know the point of most castles is to have a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, but this one really does have the most amazing view. Given the clear blue skies, we could see for miles over the river valley and the surrounding mountains. Beautiful, and while we ran into other people at various points in the city streets (including an annoying beggar who just followed us around for a bit with a look on her face like that old lady in the wheelchair that Homer accidentally wheeled out of the retirement home instead of Marge's mum - anyone?), we had the various viewpoints all to ourselves. 

The quarter on the other side of the river. 

The entrance into the cathedral/Onofri museum (Onofri was a "famous" Albanian icon painter who apparently introduced the colour pink into icon painting).  Remember how I said we were disappointed that it was closed? When we came across it, there was a tour group outside and the door was open, so we just went in. Five minutes later, the tour group came in and the guide asked us who we were and what were we doing in the museum, and made us go pay at the ticket office (we knew there was a charge, but hadn't seen the ticket office, assuming the door had just been left open). So that was a nice surprise. Not sure if the opening hours were wrong or we got lucky and happened to be there at the precise time they opened up to let this tour group in, but either way, we were happy that we got to see it. The museum isn't wildly exciting, but it was nice to see. 

Altar screen 

One of the altar screen doors, featuring I guess Archangel Michael, maybe Gabriel. 

 Rain didn't actually arrive on Monday, turning up only on Tuesday morning to pelt us as we got into the car for the next leg of our roadtrip, over the Llogora Pass to Himare and the "Albanian Riviera". 

The road to Berat

I'm behind on blogging already, since we're sitting here by the beach in Himare already, after two nights in Berat I haven't told you about yet. I'm going to stay behind, since before dinner I just have time for a quick post about the drive from Tirana to Berat. It's okay though, we have some lazy beach days scheduled, so I'll be able to catch up then. 

We left Tirana about midday on Sunday to drive more or less straight down the country to Berat. The GPS suggested going all the way across to the coast, down and then inland again, but I wanted to drive right down the middle since we were planning to spend quite a bit of time on the coast anyway and I thought it would be more interesting to see the interior as well. 

Although most of the roads were paved and in a reasonable condition, we got a sense of why the GPS told us to take the coastal route when we turned off the highway on to a narrow, basically single-lane road. Which proceeded to twist and turn through the hilly landscape, at times on gradients that just have been at least 20%. The car engine was screaming as we went up some of these - I didn't have the presence of mind to take any photos to show how steep it was, I was just praying we'd get up the hill. Add in people walking along the sides of the road, occasional chickens, dogs and donkeys, and Albanians not quite grasping the concept of lanes, and you have the makings of an interesting trip. Oh, and did I mention it was raining?

Luckily, the gorgeous landscape made up for the moments of terror, and while they seem prone to weave all over the road, overtaking on blind corners or pulling out into oncoming traffic to drive around a pothole or donkey cart, luckily the back roads have the advantage of being very quiet for the most part. Plus the abysmal condition of some of the roads mean that you can't drive very fast anyway, although never has 50 km/h felt faster than at some points en route. (Sorry for freaking you out, mum.) 

Jules was a hero, as usual, and we arrived in Berat some hours later in one piece but definitely in need of a sit-down and a drink!

Spot the cool oldie-timey haystacks in the foreground?

I don't know if the photos do it justice, but at times you could swear you were driving through the hilly Tuscan countryside or something. Or what I imagine the hilly Tuscan countryside to look like, Florence is the closest I've got to it. 

Shortly before driving down that road looping down the hillside. 

You wouldn't know it from some of the other photos, but it really was raining quite hard at times. This photo shows the state of the road a bit better. 

This was a park in Berat, showing the after-effects of the rain. Fingers crossed, it's sunshine from now on, but the landscape is obviously quite green, so I suppose it rains more often than I would have thought. 

Tirana day two

On Sunday, we headed out to see a little more of Tirana before our Albanian road trip began. We stopped off first at the Et'hem Bey mosque because we had read it had nice frescoes outside. A couple of friendly guys outside told us to go in, and helped us rouse the attendant inside. Inside was covered with beautiful paintings, including landscape views which are apparently rare in Islamic art. I'm no expert in Islamic art, but the decoration in general looked more obviously floral and less abstract than other examples I've seen. We were the only people in there, so it felt really special. We had to have a whispered discussion upstairs about whether a tip to the attendant would be insulting or appreciated - we went for it, and got a bow with his hand over his heart, so seems that was the right move. 

Outside, one of the friendly guys got talking to us and explained that this was Tirana's most beautiful and famous mosque, built by Et'ham Bey, who was the vizier in charge of Albania at one point during the 500 or so years it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. His tomb is outside. He offered to take us on a tour, and although it's dumb to set off without setting a price, timeframe, etc, we thought "what the hell" and went for it. 

It was a pretty good decision, we learnt a lot more about Tirana than we would have alone, and he was an engaging guy who didn't sound like he was just reciting from a script. He knew his stuff though, down to the exact day, month and year of events. 

Unbelievably, this house, built by Et'ham Bey's successor as vizier, is the first "official" house in Tirana - dating alllll the way back to 1837. Before that, people just lived in small huts. So this place was an impressive palace - which housed the vizier's harem. 

Mother Teresa, although born in Skopje, had Albanian parents and is very much regarded as one of their own. I had to stifle a giggle when the guide claimed that this mosaic was in y he Guinness Book of World Records as the "most beautiful mosaic of Mother Teresa made out of seashells".  I've never seen a mosaic made out of seashells before, so the competition might not be all that stiff. 

A trip to see the mausoleum of the dictator Enver Hoxha was definitely on my list. Hoxha was the communist dictator for 40 years, from the end of World War Two until his death in 1985. His daughter, an architect, built this pyramid for him to lie in state, Lenin-style, but by the time it was ready, he only spent one year within its walls before his successors decided to move him for fear it would become a focal point for dissent, and then of course communism fell. 

It was in a much more dilapidated state than I had expected - it's apparently made out of marble, although you wouldn't know that by looking at it now. There was talk of tearing it down, but apparently they've decided to keep it and restore it as a unique feature of the Tirana landscape. There were people walking up its steep sides, but we were both too scared to do that! 

This is the first (for me) of over 700,000 bunkers built by Hoxha, who was paranoid about the prospect of an invasion by the UK and U.S.  Given the population at the time, there were enough bunkers for one per every three inhabitants. Of course, this wasted a ton of money and were never used. Behind the bunker, the jungle-gym thing is actually an example of the torture devices used in the communist prisons. Dissidents would be tied by their wrists to the frame, left there for three weeks, and flogged. 

I forgot to say last time that we had dinner in "Bloku" (the block), which in communist times was an entire neighbourhood off-limits to all but the top Party members. Today, it's a very verdant and pleasant area full of bars and restaurants. 

By midday, we were ready to move on, and our road trip began! First stop, Berat - tune in next time for that.