Trip to Albania

Veni, Vidi, Vici, is an old latin proverb that would be appropriate to tell in these moments after a long trip throughout Albanian mountaines and seaside sneaky roads. Starting from Central Kosova to the west, in the border with Albania, an old man with moustache western movie cowboy looking asked us..."where are you guys going?".

In the so called border station, we were asked for some king of document with photo to show the identity. No passports needed. Two same flags were waving in two border stations between Kosovo and Albania. You can speak the same language also...with a little dialect. You can also smoke cigarettes in the Albania albanian side since the border police were doing so...with his cigarette but in his lips and yellowed teeth, he gave a fake smile saying 'welcome to albania brother'.

The ongling road constructions were cutting the old sneaky road that was used for hundreds of years. One of the guys in the car was so afraid of brooks and walleys along the road..."what a bad road!" he indicated several times.

I was astonished with the progress on the road reconstruction. The road was not bad, except for the fact that was not very comfortable.

There was no machiatto, no cappucino and no expresso. Hmmm how can they live without it? The closest solution was to have either Turkish or Greek coffee, but the problem was that both greek and turkish coffee were cooked in the same place. The cups were dividing them.

After few hundred kilometers of drive throughout beautiful landscape, hills and mountains of Central Albania, we entered in a different living style, quiet influenced by the Greek. The South Albania is mostly orthodox religion and with a strong diaspora in Greece.

Beautiful mediterranian villages with small gardens for each house, these villages look like they were designed only for modeling for photos. Small but functional houses with flat roofs and grey coloured are strangly located next to each other creating a mediterranian abstract mosaic that attracts every tourists eye. Very warm and hospital people...

Saranda was the destination achieved only after 630 kilometers of drive throughout albanian lands...a place located in the south of Albania in the Ionian (alb: Jon) seacoast. Mediterranian vegetation like black peper, bananas and huge olive tree fields are the first image that comes up in this beautiful panorama. Then comes the sea...deep, blue, clean, and highly salty.

more stories and photos comming soon...