Rather rudely it decided to rain in Albania, did it not know we were here on holiday trying to fit all the sights in? 😉
This is when its good to have fluid travel plans aka no real plans. So we started planning to try and have the forecasted wet days as driving days, with hopefully dry sightseeing days ( what are the odds ! )
After a nice, at times frenetic, drive we arrived at our accommodation. The lovely Noah gave us the low down on Berat and some fruit from his garden (pomegranates, persimmon, peaches, oranges and apples). With that we had a hot climb to the castle overlooking the city. The ruins were pretty impressive but the sunset and city night views stole the show.
Weirdly from up there we could see the whitehouse ! Were we suddenly in the USA 🤔
We strolled down the hill (something Janet loves is walking in the dark haha ) and found that it was infact the Columbo hotel. Not sure why it didn’t come up in booking.com our budget bracket 😫
Then we found a nice restaurant, ordered dinner and then proceeded to battle with a mad cat, all meal, for it.
The road out to Corovoda canyon was very twisty and narrow but surprisingly tarmac the whole way. We stopped at a bakery to buy some lunch, it looked super rustic with the 2 old ladies stood outside, a throw back to old communist days.
One of the first canyon view points we got to had a hole (where brides were supposed to go in, turn their dress inside out and then get pregnant) and somehow the German fella who was there had managed to drop his shoe into the bottom of it. He stomped off to his van and came back with a towing strap and abseiled down to get it, he must have lived that shoe 😉 Pete then caught the shoe as he threw it up, then gave him a hand to get back out – much to his wife’s relief, as we were the only people there.
The canyon itself was pretty cool, we took a very narrow, winding path up the canyon walls for a great view. In the spring you can raft down the river but the water level was far too low for that at this time of year.
As we stopped at various parts of the gorge and drove across a dodgy bridge or two, we had spots of rain. Then just as we finished exploring the most southerly part of the canyon, the heavens opened.
We drove back to Berat, where we booked a different apartment for the night to let the storm pass. The road was deep with water with lots of potential to aquaplane so we took it careful back to Berat.
We met the mum of the guesthouse at her shop and she showed us into the apartment behind. Next thing the power went out which was apparently across the whole town. It lasted for about an hour and a half by which time the mum had delivered us a candle or two.
Once power was restored we decided to go out for dinner. Pete and I both thought the other had the door key but as we shut the front door realised the key was still in the back of the lock. DOH! The mum tried the spare key but no joy. We spoke to the daughter on the phone and she said, not to worry, someone was coming to help and that we should go for dinner . We felt awful – and soon very wet as it was still biblical, torrential rain. After a great pizza we returned and Mum had our key – phew!
Next morning, Janet went for a run and passed a man carrying his slaughtered turkey and some piggies grazing at the side of the new road. One piglet hadn’t learned his green cross code yet. Even in the towns, people are much more connected to nature. The forecast was still for a bit of rain so we delayed driving into the Albanian Alps and instead stopped near Shkoder at Shkodra lake. Janet couldn’t resist a swim in the lake before a lovely sunset.
After a fab dinner at the lakeside, very modern restaurant on the campsite (we think German owned) and a great night’s sleep we set off towards Theth.
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