ALBANIA – A Road Trip: Vlorë

The internet is a truly wondrous thing – I say this, because within a couple of hours of making the decision to stay at Orikum Marina, I had planned out a 6-night/7 day driving and sight-seeing tour, complete with hotel bookings in the various places we would stay.  I knew approximately how far we would drive each day, and more importantly how long it would take, and what we would endeavor to see in each place.  Naturally, my Albanian guide book was also a big help, giving suggestions of things to do and places to stay.  I must admit to being just a little nervous about driving ourselves in Albania, having already witnessed the standards of the roads as well as the drivers, however, I figured if we just went slowly we would be fine.  Besides, Tad would do the driving and I would be the navigator – as usual!

Our first day was a ‘trial run’ in that we just did a day trip and returned to Bisou for the night.  We left reasonably early and drove the 20km or so to Vlorë and spent a couple of hours walking around.  Unfortunately none of the museums we wanted to visit were open, but we did get a good feel for the largest city we had visited in Albania so far.  Not terribly exciting, not terribly clean, and very HOT!  I think I may have omitted the fact that we had been experiencing unseasonably hot weather for the past couple of weeks, but while we had been on the boat and at anchor, we didn’t feel it so keenly.  Once ashore, on paved roads and footpaths – it was a different story!

Soviet 'realist' style statues of the martyrs and founders of Albania

Some local men in a back street of Vlore playing chess

The main square in Vlore

One of the oldest mosques in Albania - in Vlore

Vlorë is a large port city into which ferries from Italy pour in, as well as commercial cargo ships, etc.  The port area is reasonably nice but the city has very little to offer tourists – most head south along the coast (from which we had just driven) to spend an inexpensive beach holiday, or inland to explore the more remote mountainous regions.  We decided to try and find a castle mentioned in the guide book as it seemed that it would offer spectacular views – the book said that it was “a few kilometres from the city centre” and although we had purchased a road map (useless) it was only when I used the Map Application on my smart phone that we found a very worn and potholed road that wound up the mountainside for about 15km and eventually arrived at Kanina Castle – actually a parking spot at the side of a road from which wound a rather steep, cobblestoned path to the castle. Quite a number of the old towns in Albania have been cobbled with limestone cobblestones, which look lovely but are lethally slippery, particularly where cars have driven over them and smoothed them out even further.  There seems to have been no attention paid to the steepness of the incline on these paths and while ascending is a good workout for the legs, descending again can be rather treacherous if you do not have good rubber treads on your shoes.  One guide pointed out that we should walk on the black stones as they are less slippery – that’s if you can find any!!!

The walk (hike!) up to Kanina Castle

But the view was worth it!

In any case, we climbed up to Kanina Castle, of which little remains, but the book was right – the views were spectacular up and down the Albanian coastline.  I am not sure that I would recommend the place as a ‘must see’ but we felt the trip was worthwhile.  We headed back to the marina and Bisou after descending back to Vlorë, and then off to the beach for a swim to finish off the day.