The road departing from Tirana to Elbasan
was around the corner from our hotel, so within 10 minutes we were on our way
out of town and headed south. Another
upgrade to the road system of Albania was the blasting of a 2.5km tunnel
through the mountains towards Elbasan and the construction of a highway for
part of the route. Mind you, the rest of
the road was winding, barely-two-lanes-wide and choked with trucks, cars and
buses! Still, we were not in a hurry,
and we enjoyed the view – whether it was a donkey hauling hay on a cart,
children playing at the side of the road or old-fashioned hay stacks and corn
stacks in the fields. The air was fresh
(when it wasn’t dusty from the road) and the mountains and fields green, and we
arrived in Elbasan an hour or so after departing Tirana.
Part of the old wall at Elbasan
The old wall at Elbasan
Painting above the doorway to the Orthodox Church at Elbasan
A rusted old oil pump
The area came to importance under the
Romans as the crossroads of branches of the Via Egnatia, and was fortified to
protect this important road between the Adriatic and Byzantium. The city walls were then rebuilt by the
Ottomans in 1466 and by the 17th century the city had become a major
commercial centre, specializing in leather, fabrics and silverwork. The walls enclose the old town, within which
many homes are still to be found – the old town also contains one of the oldest
mosques in Albania (we were only able to see the outside) and a lovely little
Albanian Orthodox church (again, no access possible). As we were walking around looking for the
church, we asked a local gentleman if he could tell us where it was and he
kindly interrupted his conversation with another man to take us to the church
and tell us about what he remembered the inside looked like. He spoke quite good French and so at least I
was able to understand his story and ask questions about what life had been
like before communism. He was thrilled
when I presented him with a small koala and kangaroo pin (Australian souvenirs)
to thank him for his kindness. One of
the main entrances through the wall of the old town was also the entrance to
the Real Scampis Resort (hotel and bar/restaurant) and was a lovely place to
view the wall and several excavated places within the wall.
We didn’t remain in Elbasan much longer as
we had further to travel that day and didn’t want to be on the road too
late. As it happened, the road I chose
(via our map and Map App on the smartphone) ended up being much more
adventurous that I anticipated. It
probably also took longer than I had planned, but it was much more interesting
than the ‘main’ road which is normally used.
The roads are reasonably well signposted
(if you know the little villages that should be along the way) and so we did
pretty well for the first half of the drive.
Again, the variety in roads from nicely paved, two-laned roads to
dirt/stone pathways was extreme – however, the road did wind through a lovely
valley very fertile and green and some of the little villages were quite
cute. We marveled at the number of
unfinished concrete structures that we found out later were homes that the
Albanian diaspora were building – they would save up a little money and begin
construction until the money ran out and then the structure would sit there
(sometimes for years) until the next injection of money took the building to
the next level. The other tradition that
has been carried through since the olden days is the concept of
multi-generational homes; this means that the parents engage a builder to
create (usually) a three-story home. The
ground floor is completed first and the parents move in – they have their
children and the second story is constructed so that as they grow, marry and
have their own children, they have the second story in which to live. If there
are sufficient funds and the grandchildren are still around (or if there are
more children than can occupy the second story) a third story may be
constructed. What you normally see today
is a large number of concrete skeletons (nothing completed) or single story structures
with a lot of reinforcing bars sticking out of concrete pylons on the roof,
awaiting the next floor! It does give
the perception of unfinished and untidy buildings.
We drove through an interesting part of the
valley, just prior to the turnoff for Berat, which was filled with oil
wells. Thinking that these must have
been used during the communist era (they were old and rusted pumps as well as
many being surrounded by black oil slicks) you could still smell the crude oil
in the area. What astounded us was the
cultivation entirely surrounding these oil wells, with corn, wheat and many
other fruits and vegetables being grown in the oil-soaked soil. Later, when speaking with a local in Berat,
we discovered that these wells are still producing oil and were horrified to
think that people eat the produce being grown in that soil!
Eventually, after a rather breath-taking
descent down a limestone cobbled road into the old town of Mangalemi (Berat) we
arrived at our hotel: Mangalemi Hotel.
It has been created from two old local homes and was one of the
highlights of our time in Albania. The
homes have been restored and modernized (clean, modern bathrooms, comfortable
beds, cable tv, etc.) but with ‘antique-style’ furnishings and a lovely
handmade crocheted bedspread. The hotel
is family-owned and the staff could not have been more friendly or
accommodating. In spite of our poor
eating experience at the hotel in Tirana we booked to eat at the hotel
restaurant in Mangalemi – for one thing, the restaurant was on a terrace at the
top of the hotel and if nothing else we would have lovely views over the town.
After freshening up we decided to take a
walk through the old town and across the Osumi river to the other part of the
old town. Apparently, Mangalemi was the muslim part of the city during Ottoman
times, and Gorica was the orthodox, although there are mosques and churches on
both sides of the river. It was another
incredibly hot day as we made our way through both old towns to gaze at the
houses built up the sides of the mountains.
The area has been inhabited since the bronze age over 4000 years ago and
is one of the oldest towns in Albania.
It is UNESCO heritage listed and the town is known as the “place of a
thousand windows” due to the view of the houses and their windows climbing up
the hillside.
Mangalemi (Berat)
the River Osumi which runs through Berat
One of the many old houses of Mangalemi
The Citadel
A 'holy' mountain with "ENVER changed to "NEVER"
One of the beautiful icon paintings in the church of St Nicholas in the Citadel
Dinner was a wonderful experience of local
dishes and a beautiful sunset and moonrise.
We were delighted, also, when there was an electricity blackout which
probably inconvenienced the hotel staff but which made viewing the city by
night delightful. After dinner, with the
lights back on, we made our way to the ubiquitous promenade area of town where
the locals parade, sit at cafes and in the case of Berat, had an outdoor cinema
set up for the local children and were playing (probably a pirated version of)
the cartoon “Madagascar” in Albanian!
The next morning was to be our last day of
the road trip – we wanted to visit the Citadel at Berat and as it was promising
to be another scorcher of a day, we drove up to the entrance of the
castle. As we paid our entrance fee, we
were approached by a young man who offered to be our guide and allow us entry
into three of the numerous churches within the old city walls. Our previous experience of local guides has
been wonderful and upon discovering that he was only charging us E 10 for a 90
minute walk we agreed to his offer.
Elvis (as his name turned out to be) was
amazing – he told us that he was a medical student and that this was his summer
job to try and earn some money to help pay his way through medical school. He was a fountain of knowledge and spoke
excellent English, and as he showed us through three of the loveliest little
churches we also quizzed him on growing up in the area. In spite of the fact that he was studying to
be a doctor there was no guarantee of a job for him at the end of this studies
– he was hoping to be able to obtain a scholarship for further studies overseas
but said that the competition was fierce.
In the meantime, he gave us a fabulous tour
around the citadel, told us its history and the myths of the mountains
surrounding Berat and made the whole experience thoroughly entertaining. We tipped him generously (although I still
felt that we didn’t pay him enough!) and went on our way, headed back to
Orikum. The drive passed quickly and we
were back at the marina by late afternoon.
As we didn’t have to turn in the car until the following morning, we
decided to make a short trip into Orikum to have the car cleaned (there are
numerous road-side car wash places due to the amount of dust along the roads)
while we had a delicious wood-fired pizza at a nearby restaurant. The car wash and vacuum cost the equivalent
of AUD $3 and the dinner of a large pizza, greek salad and two large (500mL) draft
beers was less than AUD $10! Albania was
such a bargain in so many ways.
BISOU in Orikum Marina
We decided to spend another day at the
marina to do laundry, give the boat a good washdown (which we hadn’t done since
Tunisia) and have a break from all the travelling; Sunday morning we set off
back down south, stopping again at Porto Palermo for a couple of nights at
anchor (heaven, after almost two weeks in a marina), and then to Sarandë to check out and spend a last night.
Although we didn’t end up spending an
entire month in Albania, it was almost three weeks – we ‘sneaked’ back into
Greece at Corfu and made our way slowly back to Preveza where we checked in
‘officially’ to allow us our final 55 Schengen days!
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