Albania

After a border crossing and an easy drive, we arrived at Camping Gjirokastër . It is a small family-run campsite which cost €12pn for the three of us. We were immediately welcomed into the restaurant garden by the friendly owner and offered free glasses of chilled white wine, along with a plate of cheese and olives. We relaxed in the shady garden for the rest of the day, eating fresh fruit sprinkled with cinnamon offered to us by the restaurant and catching up on some work and homeschooling. In the evening, Amelia played with the owner’s daughters and the children of other campers. After a delicious dinner (huge mezze platters with enough leftovers for lunch), we decided to stay another day.

We also paid a brief visit to the town of Gjirokastër. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was filled with souvenir shops and tour groups. However, when we arrived at the castle around 9 am no tour groups had arrived yet so we had it almost to ourselves. We walked down a dim passageway lined with cannons and then began to explore various rooms, including a pitch-black prison cell (amazingly creepy). We also explored the top of the castle which had beautiful views of the town.

Next, we decided to drive up the coastline and over the stunning Llogara Pass. Because of the threat of severe weather, we completed this drive faster than planned (no overnight stops) and we decided to push on to Tirana where we planned to meet another Worldschooling family. We ended up on a narrow side road which was pretty but we were glad to re-join the main highway. However, after only a few minutes we heard a noise and pulled over to discover that we had a puncture – the first time this had happened in our motorhome. We stopped to change our tyre as quickly as possible due to approaching rain, but we couldn’t get the vehicle jacked up high enough. A car stopped to tell us that there was a tyre shop just down the road and then offered Gary a ride there because our tyre was too flat to drive. The shop was closed on Sunday, so they phoned the owner and arranged for him to come to us to change our tyre. This proved difficult as we had been supplied with the wrong spare rim when we purchased the motorhome but he still charged us only €20 to switch the rim on our tyres and get us on the road again! In the meantime, more strangers stopped by to check that we were OK and even offered to buy us sodas in a nearby restaurant or help with anything else we needed!

Next, we went to the Lagoon of Patok and stayed at the Bella Vita restaurant with private cabanas for meals over the lagoon. Parking is free if you have a meal. We had seafood, vegetables, and extremely delicious cornbread which is a specialty of the region. This meal was €20 for the three of us.

We then headed to what became our favorite place to stay in Albania: Ledi’s Place Restaurant . There is no charge to stay if you buy a meal and it is run by a wonderful family. There is a beautiful shady garden/restaurant where you can sit all day. Amelia loved playing with their baby bunny, and they also had dogs, kittens, geese, and a free-roaming pony. They even give you a free breakfast of pancakes and coffee. We stayed two nights at Ledi’s Place while we visited the Shala River.

However, we were disappointed when we arrived at the restaurant: although it was a peaceful family-run bed and breakfast, it was not on the famously beautiful shallow clear river that we had seen in photos. We arrived around 10 am and didn’t want to spend all day there without seeing the higher part of the river. So, we talked to the owner of the bed and breakfast and after a delicious early lunch, she arranged for a small skiff to take us upriver. We thought about asking for a discount from the original company but decided in the end that the price for transport to the bed and breakfast was reasonable so we didn’t really mind (we did point out that he should include the small boat in his tour when water levels are low as the shallower areas of the river are the most beautiful).

Next, we decided to head to the Albanian Alps, where we hoped to go hiking and meet up with a family that we met at the campsite where we stayed on our first night in Albania. We stayed at Boga Alpine Resort (there was a slightly tight turn into a gate but we made it and it saved us from driving the steep and winding road up to Theth). The campsite is pretty – already in the mountains with good views and pleasantly cool temperatures – and can arrange for transport to Theth for hiking (we didn’t find that we wanted to spend time in Theth, which is more like a collection of guest houses than a town).

The cost of round-trip transport from the campsite to Theth in a local taxi was €50, including an hour’s drive up the mountain and the driver stopping wherever requested and waiting all day) or €80 to get as close as possible to the Blue Eye of Theth in a 4WD vehicle (this makes it easier and more pleasant to hike to the Blue Eye of Theth – which, rather than being a spring like the Blue Eye near Gjirokastër, is a blue pool at the base of a waterfall). While the transport/tour was more expensive than most things we paid for in Albania, the driver was a nice man who lived next to the campsite and we were out all day (9 am-5 pm) with lots of stops. Some were suggested by our driver and Amelia had many ideas from watching a video by the Five World Explorers – a Worldschooling family that she loves following. In some cases in Albania, particularly for tours, we knew we were paying more than the “local” rate but we were happy to pay what was asked. Otherwise, a smaller vehicle could easily drive all the way to Theth – the road was paved this year and we could even have made it in our 7.4 m motorhome but with difficulty!

We had found overnight parking in a paid lot next to an abandoned mansion but we were parked in an extremely tight space with a Rolls Royce just inches away. When it was time for us to leave, we gratefully accepted Andy’s offer to help us reverse out of the parking lot without hitting anything next to us or behind us!