Macedonia and a little bit of Kosovo

Our sixteen hour overnight bus was yet another eventful trip for us. A couple of hours into the bus ride I decided to check out on the GPS on my phone where exactly we were... “ummmmm” I said to Helen, “we are heading north, and we want to be going south...”. There was nothing we could do, no one spoke English, no one had checked our tickets yet and we were well and truly in the middle of no where by now. “I guess we just stay on until we get kicked off”. We watched ourselves travel north for another few hours before we decided we really did need to get some sleep and there was nothing we could do about it. We dutifully handed our passports over at border controls to who knows where and continued to hope for the best. Finally fifteen hours later we miraculously arrived in Skopje, Macedonia, an hour early. Who would have thought! After some map trawling I figured we'd headed five hours north to cross into Croatia from Bosnia then into Serbia and gave Belgrade a wide berth to travel down the eastern border. Not sure why not just Bosnia straight into Serbia as that was about an hour from Sarajevo and would have saved nine hours of driving. Perhaps I missed some info on the tour?

Upon our arrival in Skopje we strolled to our hostel and signed up for a trip to Lake Makta – an afternoon hiking, relaxing on a boat and exploring caves. No swimming though, the water was a cool 12 degrees and on 40 degree days can harm your heart with the sudden change in temperature. Later that evening we headed out for some traditional cuisine with some new friends we had made during the day – starters, mains, salads and beers, when the bill came we rounded it up to include a generous tip and divided it amongst us: 300 dina each, the equivalent of about NZD9 and we were absolutely stuffed, if not a little giggly from the beers. The cheapness of the food makes it impossible to not eat too much!

The following day we took a day trip to Prishtina, Kosovo. What an eye opener. We probably could of and should of spent longer there but leaving after eight hours we felt like we had our fill of Kosovo for a while. Absolutely everything was under construction – the clock tower, the Mother Teresa Cathedral, the Kosovo National Museum, after walking up and down a street for half an hour it was pure luck that when we finally located the Independence Museum that the guy was just arriving to open that up, otherwise that would have been closed too. We had a delicious lunch at a place called Tiffany's that serves up whatever the chef found at the markets that morning. Then we found the Newborn sign – graffiti ridden – at which point we decided to mosey back to the bus station. We were getting very flustered from a. the heat (40+), b. the staring, c. the horns constantly being tooted at us, and d. every second car pulling over to gawk at us. At one point we even got hit on by the cops! Yes, we are blonde girls who are very obviously tourists and don't belong, get over it!!! But, this frustration aside, Prishtina, and Kosovo in general, is just finding its feet and has the makings of a fantastic city to spend time in. It was very much what I was expecting Belgrade and Sarajevo to be like but they have had a lot more time to come a lot further, in ten years time it will be a beautiful city.

Our final day in Skopje we spent doing a walking tour - we had explored the old town a bit the night before when we had dinner but during the day time heat it was something else. There are statues galore, of everyone imaginable, all brand new and part of the 2014 upgrade project – this is, in a nutshell, rebuilding the city of Skopje post war – in time for the next election, of course. We did a quick run through of the markets to purchase Skopska salad ingredients, about 4kg worth of tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, onions and peppers came to the equivalent of less than a quid, am really starting to question why food is so expensive at home!?

We headed for Lake Ohrid that evening and managed to get there only an hour behind schedule – our bus just stopped working as we went up a hill, no one seemed concerned with this and ten minutes later they had it started again. We made and devoured our salad and washed it down with some beers once we were settled in the hostel. A rather large night out ensued. The next two days were spent doing absolutely nothing except making our way to the lakeside to bask in the sun and wallow in the lake. Bliss. And again I'm pretty sure the only thing the sun should do is set. It was another over night bus for us last night and we have arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria safe and sound despite the very tetchy taxi driver at 4am this morning. For the first time this trip I think my blog is on time xxx

Lake Makta, Macedonia - my first encounter with Bats while caving.

Statue's in Skopje

More statues in Skopje (I could keep doing this for a while but I stopped taking photos pretty quickly)

Lake Ohrid - so incredibly clear, I'm not even sure where the lake ends and the sky starts.

Lazing on our lounger at the lake

Sunset by Lake Ohrid (that's Albania in the distance)

Prishtina, The Main Street.

Newborn Sign

Under construction times two - cathedral and clock tower

Bosnia

Wowza, has it been hot lately or what!!! This hasn't seemed to suppress our appetites at all though...

We arrived in Mostar, Bosnia early in the morning and already it was sweltering, I was feeling well rested though as this time on our overnight bus it was my turn for the window seat, bonus! We found our hostel and signed up for a tour for the day out to some ancient towns and relaxing by a giant waterfall. As we step outside to grab our ride an Audi is waiting “excellent” we think as the first four hop in “I wonder what our car will be”...? Oh, here it is now, “it kind of looks stolen...” as we jump in to the old people mover and note that the stereo has been ripped out, not a great start. Off to the petrol station where the driver can't figure out how to get the petrol cap off “it's not my car” he confesses... reeeeealllly? The rest of the day was a dream though – we visited some natural springs on the Buna River at Blacaj that was also home to a Tekija - an old Turkish house, which strangely enough still has two inhabitants – dead for the past umpteen years, kind of odd. Pocitelj was our next stop and this was the ruins of a fortress and mosque. The heat was getting kind of ferocious (we're talking 40 degree days here, way more than this Southern Hawkes Bay girl can handle) and so it was off to the very impressive Kravice Waterfall for some swimming and bathing for the rest of the day.

That night we managed to tag along with a tour group that had a few other kiwi's on board for dinner and drinks and hit the hay relatively early. We did have big expectations for the evening as when we arrived we discovered that it was the end of Ramadan and no one had been allowed to drink for the last month. It was a three day celebration though so we guessed they were pacing themselves.

The next morning, and after a lot of talk of jumping off the famous Mostar Bridge (25m high), Helen was pushing me to inquire into the training required to do such a daring potentially-fatal leap of faith. The guys at the dive club weren't very accommodating in their efforts to help us - and after asking our guide what she thought about us jumping she couldn't even speak at the shock of such an idea to give us an answer so we decided against it. Have to leave something for next time. We had hired a local guide earlier in the day and she showed us around the city, talked about the outlook Bosnian's have on life post-war (she was only 18 and therefore hadn't really been through the war for any of her own stories) and took us to a traditional Bosnian house for the man that has four wives – lucky guy.

On to Sarajevo that evening where we promptly picked up a recommendation for dinner and strolled around the old town until we found it. Galatasaraya's was absolutely delicious – bear in mind we have been eating Cevapcici (basically long meatballs) for every dinner for the past week nearly, but these were something else. It came out in the wash that the old timer who owned the place and was chatting to us throughout dinner was an “ex-footballer for Bosnia, very famous, the best” according to the couple he was eating with. We are pretty much famous by association.

Later that night we joined forces with a couple of others from our hostel and headed out to Sloga – a club that took forever to find and when we did it looked empty. It was a Monday night so who could blame them, but when we climbed the stairs we were greeted by a very lively room full of Salsa dancers – perfecto, I love Salsa (even though I can't dance)! I grabbed a beer and was just taking my first sip when someone grabbed the bottle out of my hand (and mouth), put it on the table and pulled me onto the D floor, apparently it was time for me to Salsa. I have taken approx. 10 salsa lessons in my life and that was a few years ago – now, I have two left feet to dance with. What a disaster! This went on awkwardly for another ten minutes before I was given back to my friends. I'm onto my second sip of beer when I am startled by some questioning as to where I come from... “are you from Cuba?” “ummm, no, why?” apparently it was because I dance so well. Smooth. I try to prove to this guy that I do not dance so well and show him the two and a half steps I know before he tells me off for leading, again I am very ungracefully pulled around the dance floor until he too realises I can't dance, and lets me go again. It was fun though, all you guys out there reading this you definitely need to take the initiative more often and ask a girl to dance!

The next morning after no where near enough sleep we rose early to do a tour of Sarajevo. What a most humbling experience - our guide, Haris, was about our age but had obviously seen so much more in his life time. We agree that we feel so ignorant/sheltered coming from a place like NZ (as great as it is and as much as we love it) especially when we talk about the worst thing we ever found dead was our pet lambs – not our next door neighbour who'd been shot. To go on a day like this and hear about how as a seven year old kid Haris had to go through an 800m tunnel and then walk for another three days just to bring back twice his weight in food for his family, really makes you reassess what you take for granted. At one point someone was complaining about being hungry and Haris asked him “do you eat every day?” oblivious to the point the guy replied with “yes”, “lucky you” Haris responded. But all credit to them, Sarajevo has come a long way since 1995 and the city is beautiful and thriving. So yes, we visited the 800m tunnel that was Sarajevo's lifeline during the war – it went from the city underneath the airport and came out on Bosnian territory not under seige. Next stop was the Bob Sled track from the 1984 Olympics that was misused during the war by the Serbs. We then soaked up the panoramic city sights before entering Sniper Alley where people were murdered from a far if they tried to leave the city. We visited another traditional house, similar to that we saw in Mostar before another meal of Cevipcici.

Helen and I had to leave the tour early unfortunately as we had yet another overnight bus awaiting us. Our taxi driver was just hilarious – he spoke a bit of English and laughed heartily at everything we said, he thought it was the funniest and most preposterous thing that it was currently winter in NZ. We spent the last of our dina on food that is really good for us and hoped like hell we were on the right bus to Macedonia. Unfortunately the bus to Skopje only runs twice a week so we didn't get to spend the amount of time we would have like in Bosnia, my favourite country so far, beautiful scenery, amazing people and delicious food.

 Pocitelj ruins and mosque

Kravice Waterfall and swimming hole

Helen and I and the Mostar Bridge

Sarajevo Tunnel

Bob Sled track which has amazing acoustics also - you could talk to someone a hundred metres away like they were standing next to you

Bullet ridden building on Sniper Alley

Traditional Bosnian House

Hungary, Slovenia and Serbia!

Now, I know I write a lot about food, but oh my goodness, be prepared for a lot more talk about it in this blog.

Budapest - just divine; food was amazing and cheap, always great for a budget conscious traveler. I think I made the claim that I'd just had the best three days of eating ever in the world (except your cooking, Ma) on our last night. It all started when we arrived and immediately needed feeding. After greeting Em and Caro who had made the special trip over for the weekend from London, and Helen, who is spending the next two weeks trekking around with me, we headed out to the recommended Bali Cafe around the corner - Pork Medallions with letcho (What's letcho? “wegetables” (love translations)), plus sampling of everybody elses food. We spent the rest of the day at Sziget festival soaking up the sun and the tunes, including NZ's very own Black Seeds and returned home late all festivaled out.

The next day we headed to the famous Szechenyi thermal baths to soak ourselves clean in the steamy water – but not before eating, of course. This time we headed to a little Hungarian restaurant that also came recommended and I delighted in the Roast Duck with cabbage strudel. Not exactly hangover food but who's keeping count? For dinner that night I consulted the trusty Trip Advisor app – essential for anyone traveling – and found a place overlooking the very impressive parliament building. We strolled the couple of kilometre's from our hostel to the restaurant along the Danube and through the town to bask in the sights and bridges – absolutely gorgeous. Carne di Hall did not disappoint, “Teaser Taster Hungarian Meat” halved with Pearce's Steak Tartare - Hungarian and French Style to start nearly left us too full for our mains. But the Goose Leg was on the way and boy was it tasty. My only regret was that I didn't have enough room for dessert. You'll never go hungry in Hungary.

We had to spend a large portion of one of our Budapest days searching for a decent train over to Ljubljana. We had a slight meltdown with this and ended up having to leave Budapest earlier than anticipated to get to Slovenia. But as always seems to work out, we were not disappointed with our decision. Budapest is on the “must-go-back-to” list.

So we caught our “no changes required” train to Ljubljana – two trains, a bus and another train later we arrived in Ljubljana miraculously on time. What an absolutely stunning city Ljubljana is, and Slovenia as a whole for that matter. We quickly checked in and headed straight into the centre of town for dinner – veal (that's “weal” to you) and truffle potatoes, to die for. The next morning we got shown around all the Ljubljana sights (after devouring a delicious breakfast of course) on a walking tour and then treated ourselves to homemade Snickers Icecream – heaven in the thirty plus heat. We wandered around the markets, had a beer and caught our bus up to Lake Bled.

Upon our arrival in Bled – possibly the most magical place on the earth - Pearce and I were told there “was a problem” with our room we had booked at the Hotel – long story short, half an hour and three hotels later they had upgraded us to a Five Star Hotel for a couple of nights. No complaints here – especially with the breakfast spread and view we were treated to each morning. We kicked off the night by wandering around the absolutely stunning (yes more beautiful than Kotor a couple of posts ago) lake - this place really does look like a painting. We took photos from every possible angle and continued to be awed right up until the moment we left – Slovenia in general is on the “must-go-back-to” list. A Balkan grill for dinner – Eastern Europe really is a carnivore's dream – followed by ridiculously cheap drinks and bad service for a few hours rounded off our day quite nicely.

We tackled the cliff to reach Bled Castle the next morning and were rewarded with gorgeous views. Then spent the rest of the day, sunbathing by the lake, swimming in the lake, picnicing by the lake – lake orientated activities in general. We spent our last night heading to another highly recommended by the Trip Advisor app restaurant – Promenada - where we were treated to an off-the-menu chef's-special culinary delight. We let the waiter select our Slovenian wine and washed the amazing five course meal down with raspberry and cumin schnapps – probably not the highlight.

Next morning we took a row boat out to the famous Church of Assumption (on Assumption Day as it so happened) on Bled Island in the middle of Lake Bled had a look around, rowed back and lazed by the lake until it was time to leave again. A teary farewell to Mr. Watson who has now returned to NZ at Ljubljana Airport ensued. I took my mind off this by heading into Ljubljana for a few hours and catching up with the Aussie Girls we met in Albania for dinner, beers and ice-creams before Helen and I continued on our overnight bus to Belgrade in Serbia.

We arrived at 6am into Belgrade with no Dina (currency) and no idea where we were. Jumped on a tram and didn't know how to pay, fortunately this doesn't seem to matter. It felt like we were headed in the wrong direction for a while but up a 180 and a up a steep hill later the direction seemed to right itself and we were nearly there. We teamed up with a couple of other 6am arrivals and headed out for the hugest and cheapest breakfast we have come across so far and then carried on to the customary-when-arriving-to-a-new-city walking tour. Belgrade far exceeded our expectations – we aren't entirely sure what we were expecting, something more war ravaged and ominous I think, but it's quite the bustling metropolis. We grouped up with a bunch of people from the tour and spent the afternoon in the infamous “?” bar. Apparently the only place in the world named by punctuation only. Here we savoured local beer and cuisine until it was time to go and get ready for the beer-fest.

The Beer Fest was quite a treat, one; that it coincidentally happened to be on while we were in Belgrade, and two; because it was free. When we arrived we found out that three; the beer was really really cheap (fantastic!) and four; as I consider myself quite the carnivore I fit into Serbian culture rather well and this seemed to be about all they had on the menu – photo below. We enjoyed the Serbian music for a while and then headed to a bar under a bridge along the Sava River to round the night off.

The next day breakfast/lunch was at a bakery Helen had spotted – a slice (quarter) of pizza for 105 dina, that's NZD1.50 – don't mind if I do – before heading off to the Nikolas Teslar museum to gain some cultural insight. If you don't know Teslar, then don't worry, I didn't either, but his most handy invention to all of you (myself included) is probably the remote control. Genius. That night we headed out with our walking tour group again to the Bohemian Quarter for a traditional Serbian dinner before heading out for the night on the boat clubs that line the Sava River.

Feeling slightly worse for wear (because of my cold, not because of the night before...(who gets colds in avg. 30 degree temps anyway??!?!)) the next day we packed up our stuff and checked out. Then scoured the city for somewhere to watch the rugby to no avail. We settled for returning to our big cheap breakfast restaurant on the main street for their free wifi and incredibly slow service to allow us to at least read the game as it went on. Nice work AB's. We wandered along the river after this to go to the Torture Museum but being a Saturday, and just my luck, it was closed. No problems, the city is beautiful so we didn't mind wandering through the parks and relaxing in the garden at the hostel for the remainder of our time in Serbia.

Next stop, Bosnia.

Small selection of photo's - it takes a lot of uploading power!

Szechenyi thermal baths, Budapest, Hungary.

Hungarian Parliament by night

Beautiful Ljubljana

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Church of Assumption, Bled Island, Lake Bled, Slovenia

Sorry Pearcey, Helen said I rowed in 20 minutes and you in 19... it was actually me in 19 and you in 21 x

Bled Castle

Bled Cream Cake - just like a custard square only better.

Sava River, Belgrade, Serbia.

Is that water recycled? Hope not, people wash their feet in there!

Told you it was a carnivores dream - a selection of meat at the Beer-fest, Belgrade, Serbia.

I'm pretty sure all the sun should do is set - gorgeous!

Greece

We are now, well were before last night, very rested, relaxed and tanned (me, not the ginger one) after ten days exploring Greece.

Our first stop was Kalambaka in the north for a couple of nights for us to go and check out the monasteries of Meteora for a day. Once upon a time, 600 years ago, there were about 31 monasteries perched high on the cliff tops of Meteora. These days, there are only about six or seven that you can actually visit and we had a good crack at it. We left it slightly too late in the morning to embark on the days adventure and ended up hiking the half an hour uphill trek in the sweltering heat to the first monastery. Not without some hilarity though – Pearce often passes the comment that I don't have reasonable reactions in some situations, and with a “watch out for snakes” warning at the front of our minds we were keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. I hear a rustling in the grass and gasp, Pearce jumps up into the nearest tree (figuratively, not literally, Emma Cave), and I realise it's just a turtle. What the? I thought turtles lived in the water, not in the mountains! Anyway, this happened another two times before we came to the conclusion that maybe there are no snakes and they are all just turtles and didn't worry about it anymore. Reasonable reaction sorted.

The monasteries were unlike anything else we have seen, very impressive and humbling places with a lot of history. After five monasteries and having walked a good 10km we were finally at the last and largest (and furtherest away from home) monastery when the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. We decided to gap it and coincidentally got caught in the middle of a lightning storm and torrential rain. I was slightly fearful about how close the lightning was to us but Pearce reckoned it was still a couple of k's away... “you can tell by counting how many seconds between the lightning and the thunder and each second is a kilometre” he explains, just as lightning strikes right in front of us followed immediately by thunder. “If I die, tell my mum I love her” we exchange as we run along. But a couple of minutes later, laughing hysterically at our predicament and absolutely saturated, we were picked up by some Frenchies who very kindly dropped us at our hotel.

The next day we were Greek Island bound, Ios first up. Not a lot of deviation from the norm to report here; eating lots, drinking lots, sunning ourselves lots, swimming lots and exploring a little bit. Ios is a giant rock, there's not much else to it, but the water was pristine so we made the most of that.

After a few days we caught a ferry to Santorini. Disappointment ensued when we pulled into our “beachfront” hotel that was two kilometres from the beach - I had to strop about that for a while, before we headed out in search of dinner down at the beach. On the walk back home we were introduced to our first Greek God – S.T. Santorini Thunder (S.T) was a 50cc quad bike who was a legend in his own right. A top speed of 56kph on a steep down hill was counteracted by his crawling pace of 9kph on the uphill, and he only had one gear - forward. We spent the next two days exploring all over the island with S.T, watching the sunset in the villages of Oia and Pyrgos, sampling wines in wineries, sunning and bathing at the beaches, dining in Fira and Perissa, and getting massages seaside. We even managed to fit one tourist thing in by visiting the 3500 year old ruins of Akrotiri. I got a bit sad when we had to give S.T back, but we had to say our goodbyes because we were off to Athens.

Unfortunately Athens had been talked down to us a fair bit and we'd only booked the one day there so we needed to make the most of it. We found our perfectly located hostel and the bar on top of it just in time for happy hour, followed our noses to the best burgers in town and then parked up at the sports bar to watch some Olympics. In the morning we went on a walking tour around the city and then visited the Acropolis Museum and the Acropolis and Parthenon itself – our hostel being a stones throw from every major attraction in Athens. I discovered that a marathon is still run over the exact path the first marathon was run – from Marathon (where else?!) to Athens (finishing up in the stadium the first modern Olympics were held in) – and set myself a goal. Katie. Marathon. Greece. October 2013 - watch this space. The rest of the evening played out about the same as the night before, sky bar for happy hour, burgers for dinner, sports bar for Olympics, which then turned into a very late night of terrible Karaoke with new found friends.

Average temperature has been early thirties and water consumption is about 1L every two hours. So blimmen hot! We were up at 5.30 this morning to catch our flight and I've just been frisked and bag searched at Athens Airport (again, it's always me that gets searched) and we are Budapest bound!

Email is back up and running, unfortunately my gmail account got hacked yesterday so apologies to anyone who got spammed by that. That's back up and running now too.

Monastery in Meteora

You've probably already seen this one, but worth repeating! Ios was dreamy.

Slammer Bar - Ios. Put helmet on, have shot, get slammed over the head.

Sunset from Oia, Santorini

Me and S.T at the beach.

This is a Santorini Vineyard - it is so windy on this island, so they are kept low to the ground and grow like a bush, all the grapes are in the middle.

Me and a Presidential Guard in Athens.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis.

The sunset from the Sky Bar on our hostel overlooking the Acropolis.

Much love xxx

Eastern Europe Begins...

So, we arrived in Dubrovnik a few hours later than we had anticipated – plane delays and traffic hold ups etc, welcome to traveling (it's not a holiday) – but Pearce, having been there before, fancied himself as quite the local and took us on a whirlwind tour of the Old Town in the limited time that we had. We located our hostel and headed straight to the first hole-in-the-wall bar, a beautiful little spot where we sat on the rocks outside the wall, looked out over the Adriatic and drank beers as the sun set, while we congratulated ourselves on making it through the first (and probably least daunting) part of our journey. We continued to explore the old town sampling oysters, pizzas, local beers and alcoholic concoctions served in little buckets. As we'd arrived too late the night before we decided we'd catch the later bus down to Kotor the next day and walk around the wall in the morning, but alas, it was raining! Not ideal weather for explorations so we packed our stuff up and arrived at the bus station just as the skies cleared into a gorgeous day. Never mind, have to leave something for next time and when we arrived in Kotor, Montenegro, we were glad we had left early as greeting us was possibly the most beautiful place I have visited in the world so far.

By now we had befriended a guy on our bus who was also staying at our hostel and headed out for a bite to eat – Stuffed Squid a la Montenegro I decided upon, and wasn't disappointed. Beers were getting cheaper the further south we headed, but when the bill arrived we had no Euro so I set out in search of an ATM, I eventually arrived back from the opposite direction after getting myself lost in the cobbled streets of Kotor Old Town. The next couple of days disappeared in a blur of swimming in the Kotor Fjord, beer “tasting” as I like to call it, exploring and getting lost in the Old Town, delighting in the delicious delicacies, climbing the fortress surrounding the city and drinking in the gorgeous views every which way we looked.

It was then time to head to Albania, we had about four different bus changes along the way but decided to skip two and splash out on a cab to cross the border. One of the more scarier experiences to date, we traveled across a back road which was more like a lane and were constantly screeching to a halt as trucks and other cars came hurtling round the corner and into our path – no worries, just put your hazards on and reverse while you are honked and screeched at in Serbian. Border crossing time – it is utter chaos and completely random; would you like some figs with your border crossing today? No, just my passport back thanks – as I watched it disappear (and came back safe and sound) with whom I could only hope was a border control official.

Holy Nene Tereza!! With my eyes now really starting to open we were in Albania, donkey's and all, and twenty minutes later we were dropped on the side of a busy road in Skhodra and told by our taxi driver “here bus ten minute, then ten minute, then ten minute”. Oki doki. After many curious looks (they stare a lot in Albania) various cars, vans and buses stopping we eventually hailed our furgon (think 70's transit van in terrible condition) heading to Tirana. It was already overflowing but after instructions from the driver which I can only assume were “you move, you move, you stand, you sit, you sit, you sit back down” we were jammed in next to another twenty bodies in the 30+ degree temps for a couple of hours. We arrived in the mid afternoon heat, completely disorientated, hungry, parched, without any leke (much to our drivers disgust at having to take payment in Euro) and with no idea how to get to our hostel. We sussed it eventually though via a slightly corrupt “taxi driver” and various locals and spent the rest of the afternoon doing a spot of sight seeing, sampling Albanian cuisine (it's a carnivore's dream!) and beer and staying up until ridiculous hours being patriotic enough to watch the NZ team walk out in the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

The next day (I have lost track of what day is what now) we jumped on an overcrowded bus and headed to the picturesque town of Berat. It's only 120km down the road but this managed to be stretched out to four hours of driving – we are getting used to it. We found our cute as can be hostel then headed up to roam around the oldest still inhabited castle grounds in Europe. More Albanian cuisine for dinner followed by some people watching from a bar on the main street – they have this bizarre tradition in Berat and every night all the locals walk back and forth the main street socialising and catching up with one another, we joined in for a lap or two, though no one wanted to talk to us. Pearce had also read that it is not uncommon for there to be no women at a bar and after about half an hour he realised that I was, in fact, the only female in the bar that night. Awkward.

Time for some relaxation on the beach so we got up early and again crammed our way into an overcrowded furgon for the six hour drive to Saranda. Once we arrived we were greeted by a very warm and welcoming Tomi for whom everything was “no problem”(at Backpackers SR, Becks and Christian, definitely recommend). We stayed here a couple of days and swam in the ocean, sunbathed, continued to drink every beer that Albania had on offer (drank the supermarket out of Tirana beer (favourite) on our last night) with new friends, explored ancient ruins in Butrint, and of course tried as much food as we could! I even managed to flag a truck driver down and hitch us a ride on the back from the ruins to the beach we wanted to go to.

Albania has been truly fascinating and a very under-rated country as far as tourism goes. For transportation that seems chaotic (and it is) it actually works really well, you basically flag down the furgon or bus you want (the drivers actually stop and ask us as we are very obviously foreigners looking for our ride) and then tell the driver when you want to get off and he just stops, usually in the middle of the road no matter how busy while the cars behind honk their horns – I think more as a reaction than in actual annoyance, no one is in a hurry, (I could never drive over here). The roads are a shambles, hence taking so long to get everywhere, and the rubbish is absolutely astounding, but you can get to absolutely anywhere you want to go easily and cheaply if you are prepared for it to take a little while and to be relatively uncomfortable during that time, especially if Hoxha is having his revenge. The people are extremely lovely (well I think they are, hardly anyone speaks English) and not once did we feel unsafe, despite all of the Albanian stereotypes that you hear. I was in heaven with the food although I am unsure how they actually have an animal population given that everything on the menu was made from the young – veal, piglet etc.

We have ten days in Greece next, the weather has been stunning and the travelers tan is shaping up nicely! 

P.S Apologies to anyone who is trying to contact me via my live.com account – MSN has decided it is a good idea to block both of us from all our email accounts, not to worry though, it's not frustrating at all... 

P.P.S I've changed the way I send this out. As always, you can follow the link on FB but if you want a copy emailed straight to your inbox reply to me at kaytee390@gmail.com If you don't want to receive it and currently do reply with Unsubscribe and I will refrain from sending you any further updates and consider myself cut from your life.

Hole-in-the-wall Bar in Dubrovnik

Kotor Montenegro

 Climbing up the fortress behind Kotor Old Town

Church ruins outside of the fortress - Kotor.

Thank goodness numbers are universal otherwise we really would have no clue!!!!

The Bell of Peace in Tirana, Albania. Made with bullet casings picked up by school kids in 1997.

Me sitting a top possibly the worlds ugliest building - The Pyramid, Tirana, Albania.

Every second house in Albania is unfinished and looks like this, they are huge but sometimes have one floor completed that is inhabited.

Berat, Albania - town and Castle walls.

The nightly Xhiro in Berat - walking and socialising along the main street.

The Theatre at Butrint.

Hitching a ride with an Albanian local.

Ksamali Beach

Traditional dinner made for us by our lovely hosts in Sarande - fish, rice and salad, delicious, washed down with Tirana beer in a 1.5L plastic bottle - class!