Last day Intrepid: Back to Albania

We go for an early morning walk - just along the boulevard by the lake; buy some yummy pastries and then near our hotel enjoy a really good coffee - using up the last of our Denars!

Quick breakfast and we are off on minibus back to Albania.

Pass through the border after Radozda (700 m) which is located on the western shore of Lake Ohrid. The border is actually at Kafasan. Huge line-up of trucks.

We are back into bunker country. Between 1967 and 1986, the Albanian government built an estimated 750,000 small and medium-sized military bunkers for defence purposes with many concentrated along borders.

Then a big descent with lots of switchbacks. The descending goes on all the way. I realised that Ohrid must have been at some altitude; looked it up: 695 m. Hmmm.

The road runs side-by-side a disused railway - it would have been very scenic! I think this may be the now abandoned railway between Librazhd and Prrenjas on its way to Pogradec, closed to passenger traffic in 2012.

This is a photo I found when the line was still operational:

Last section into Tiranë : freeway including long tunnel.

 

So, it’s back to Freddy’s. Spend part of the afternoon being reunited with our 2nd suitcase which is not necessarily a good thing.

We went for an amble through town - via Skanderbeg Square (now relieved of all the clutter that was here 2 weeks ago when the area was set up for some sort of event). 

Watched a girl in purple shirt and black skirt sit and flick her hair as she struck multiple poses for her partner (male) who was also in pale (-r) purple (or maybe it is mauve??) top and black trousers taking photos of her as she twirled and twisted. We came back through half an hour or so later and MF said he saw her looking very unhappy swiping through the pictures on her mobile phone - disappointed perhaps?

We aimed for the Melbourne Bar - in the absence of any better ideas, why not? (Probably could have chosen something less down-at-heel …). It took us into a neighbourhood we hadn’t been in previously. We sat at the sidewalk tables watching the mad traffic.

Even worse though are the scooters (think ‘Beam’, ‘Lime’) and the food delivery bikes; there are no rules here as to which side of the sidewalk (or road for that matter) they will be on. It is complete guess-work and they dart between pedestrians, cutting in at unpredictable angles: incredibly dangerous.

It started to rain so it was a good spot to be.

We continued our walk through the ‘hood: a real mix but mostly seedy with broken pavements (or none at all) until we came closer to the Skanderbeg Square (once more!). The garbage is incredible. This has been consistent throughout the Balkans.

We plan an early night. MF not well with the cold he has caught from me.

We also have to leave early to get to bus station for 8 a.m. bus to Podgorica (capital of Montenegro) and train to Belgrade (capital of Serbia).

Walked 8.5 kms.

Went out for dinner. We wanted something simple and didn’t want to return to the same place down the road from Freddy’s that we’d been to when we were here at the start of the tour. Unfortunately, we tried 2 places that I had found through reviews but we didn’t like the look of them; a 3rd, found ‘on the fly’, was booked out; the 4th looked promising and turned out to be excellent! Great pasta, complimentary bruschetta and the glass of red wine was great. And yet ANOTHER interesting ‘hood ‘to boot’!! Bonus!

Back to Freddy’s. Early night.

Ended up walking 12 kms.