No Expectations

On Wednesday we loaded our gear back on the coach and travelled to a place that we had not really had any preconcieved ideas or expectations of what it would look or feel like. Picture an old man walking along the side of a dusty road. He is leading a cow along with a piece of rope and has picked up a stick to wave the flies away. He sees a busload of foreigners and is so pleased he shows his one toothed smile and waves the stick up and down, stopping to watch the tourists. The roads are so dusty the air becomes virtually unbreathable. It is so bumpy that the driver jokes about the free massage being provided. The fields are dotted with miliary bunkers enough to contain the entire population, placed there by a dictator so insane that he had five engineers design them and then tested them by bombing them with the designers inside. The one to survive got to build all the bunkers for the country. The houses are few and far between. As you get closer to the city there are some communist design flats that are grey and falling apart. At every stop the shopkeepers are delighted to see euros and accept them despite the fact that the currency is actually the Lekk.At the side of the road you can buy 'msh' from tiny stalls - fresh raw meat to cook for the day, as refrigerators are rare. Speed limits are a suggestion, overtaking with a safe distance of about half a second is some kind of local sport. Houses are lived in unfinished because if they are incomplete you never have to pay taxes on them.


Mercedes are everywhere - not because of wealth but because they are the only cars that can handle the road and easy to steal in Germany and get over the border if you nicely bribe the patrol guards with one for themselves. An alternative mode of transport is the horse and cart.


The only way into town includes a wooden bridge over rocky waters that could fall apart at any moment. The driver sweats and gets a cheer for succesfully getting the passengers to the other side alive. This is our trip into Albania.

A local guide showed us around the city of Tirana, and it is quite fascinating - the mayor decided to combat the dreary look of ex communist structures by allowing local school children to design the paintwork for them. Hence the rainbow building, the pyjama building, the green arrows building, the wedding cake building, the washing lines building and many others.


Just outside the town, at the foot of the mountain was our hotel. Albania's poor economy allowed us a night in the beautiful Chateau Linza, where David and I got to have our own room with a bath, a king size bed, a balcony and a stunning view.