True to the forecast, there had been heavy rain overnight and the blue skies were no more. We drove away from Theth with heavy hearts – although Pete was quite excited to have no slow drivers in front of him, just an empty twisty road of fun. Our usual 3.5 hour journey would this time take us to Koman on the edge of Komani Lake.
The road was paved the whole way but after heavy rains (still persisting) we could see why the road surface was so bad – the water damage was incredible. The last hour and half of the drive was very slow paced avoiding pothole after pothole, avoiding landslides and trying to see in the thick fog and mist where the edge of the road actually was.
We turned a blind bend to find a workparty and JCB clearing a landslide for us to get through. Phew!
We stayed the night in Koman which was a little like a ghost town. There was one restaurant open and while we were in there we saw a couple arrive on bicycles. They looked like little drowned rats and had cycled all the way from Shkoder, that day, but from Italy in just two weeks. Wow!
The next morning we woke up to blue skies (thankfully as per the forecast) as we had planned go on the scenic boat trip to Fierze (and back) on the car ferry on Konami Lake. Think Norwegian Fjords. Sometimes it looked like we were heading to a dead end in a gorge and then suddenly a bend appeared with a way through. It was just stunning!
We also got to chat to the cycling Swiss couple.
After an hour in Fierze, we re-boarded the ferry. On the return journey, only a few hours later, we had grey skies and rain showers so we had been very lucky to capture mirror images in the morning.
On the drive back down from Koman we could actually see the road and a view, which was nice. The JCB had been busy for 2 days clearing all the landslides so our progress was quicker.
Our 3.5 hours drive brought us back to near Tirana Airport for our last night before our flight home. We did a little “Albanian driving” to get to our hotel when the roads off the dual carriageway were gridlocked – just do what the locals do and reverse back the off ramp back onto the dual carriageway and drive on a further junction – of course!
We had really helpful hotel owners/managers who helped us wash the car ready for return to the hire car company. And as a last little hurrah we noted it was still 23C at 9pm.
What a fab holiday. Albania offers stunning places, great local food and very friendly, helpful people (apart from maybe their driving manners).
Our total mileage was 1,288 km but some of those kilometres were very slow going. But we loved them all!
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