Goats crossing the road, deserted gas stations and bee-friendly flowers. Turquoise rivers, rocky roads and green hillsides. High mountains, deep valleys and farming villages. Friendly people, delicious börek pie and raki’s in the morning glory. Lake ferries, white Sandy beaches and snakes everywhere.
Albania has exceeded all our expectations, if we even had any. It’s gorgeous, travellers friendly and too beautiful to ignore. Making a campfire while wild camping and cleaning yourself in one of the many natural springs. That’s what life is about.
I can’t imagine I was once happy sitting behind a desk in The Hague working for a bank. Nor can I imagine that instead of watching the sunset on our beach every night I chose to watch Netflix day in day out. Or that I preferred scrolling through Instagram watching other people living their life’s instead of living my own.
Sleeping on the cliff
In the last post I told you about the difficult but amazing road we took. Well, Albania is full of roads with views that words fail to describe well. After the city of a thousand windows, Berat, we travelled to the coast. Apparently Albania has tropical beaches so of course we were curious. The first night we stayed on a cliff near Vlorë, we even drive on the beach here.
It was beautiful, although the wind was a bit too much to cook outside unfortunately. Also, the garbage everywhere makes it less idyllic than we thought it would be. Things you don’t see on Instagram unfortunately.
After one night we decided to travel to Gjipe beach of which we heard from several sources. The SH8 from Vlorë (the Miami Beach of Albania) to Gjipe is fantastic! On the one side you see huge mountains and on the other side you see the turquoise sea and white sandy beaches. The winding road goes up and down through changing landscapes and tiny towns. It’s wonderful just driving this road. And then there is Gjipe Beach, a gem. Not hidden online but hidden offline as one has to walk down for about 30 minutes to get to the beach. The beach is located at the end of a gorge and looks like paradise. Reminded me of the Turkish Butterfly Valley – which is more remote than Gjipe though. Lots of rock climbers and beach lovers here. You can stay here with a tent or if you dare go down the road with your 4×4. Alexine couldn’t handle the road and if she could my heart couldn’t.
After Gjipe we travelled more South to Ksamil beach. Well, I suggest all people booking a ticket for a very very long flight to the Caribbean to reconsider. Albania is all you need. Ksamil had it all: white beaches, turquoise coloured sea and islands you could visit. It has nice restaurants and bars with good and not so expensive food. I’m not the one to be hanging around a beach for too long so we had lunch here and left.
The Greek border
We headed towards the Greek border. But, unfortunately it was closed. With closed I mean: big fences and no one in the office. We walked through the border office and only found someone coming out of the shower who just told us to find another border crossing. So we left, not to another border crossing but to the Blue Eye.
The Blue Eye
Too busy and touristy for my taste. Busses with children and adults who catch insects for a selfie. You can imagine my mood changing… But, the great thing is that you can stay here with the van and have the Blue Eye all to yourself after closing hours.
We were not alone though. Here we met Lucca from Italy and Wolfgang from Germany. They are both travelling full time with their families in these huge machines. That’s like travelling 3.0. With these over landing trucks they’ve travelled to many places of the world. From China, Nepal, Tibet to Mali, Libya and Tunesia. For months they are on the road, homeschooling their kids and exploring every bit of the earth. Lucca is a documentary film maker and works in between travelling, Wolfgang is an electrician and works for about two to three months a year in Germany. They were both very interested in Alexine, of course, and we had a nice chat and night. Learned a lot from their travels. I mean; Lucca travelled through the Sahara in the 90’s with compass and map, we use Google to find our way. It’s so great to meet likeminded people with lots of experience.
After a nice night and ice cold dip in the Blue Eye we travelled to another Greek border. Whereas the Albanians would want to let us through the Greeks stick to the rules: no tourists can travel from Albania to Greece via land. Meaning; we had to go all the way back to Macedonia and try via Bulgaria. But that means like we’re already near Turkey which is on our route. So, while driving the same way back as we came we debated if Greece was worth it.
Not sure yet though. What do you think?
Love, Milene & Yuri
