Back Home

In Croatia we heard about about an accident with the ferryboat at the lake Komani. August 29^th a passengerferry sank within four minutes, fortunately nobody lost his life. (One week after we took the car ferry on this route.) But there was nothing in the news, the officials in Albania propably still have a disturbed relationship with bad news and the freedom of the press. The ships are not looking well maintained, very rosty and life-saving-devices are missing or rotten. Looking back we got some different feelings about this cruise, which we really enjoyed…

But anyway Albania is a beautiful country, which we like to visit again.

The Way Home

We went slowly Northwest along the Croatian coast, which is really beautiful, enjoyed swimming in the clean and warm Adria, found us some nice autocamps, so they say to campgrounds in Croatia. I wanted to stay some days at Cres an island in the Kwarner Bay. Though we went to Zadar for the ferryboat, but since this day they changed the schedule into a two-times-a-week service, because the saison is off now. We missed the boat for a couple of hours only…

Plan B was to go to Krk and from there to Cres, a lot more km and more expenses for the tickets, but what could we do?

Some days later we left Cres for Slowenia.

Slowenia would it be worth to spent more there - but not this time.

We used our way through Italy to buy some good food… and went on to Austria on tollfree roads. Fortunately we have a GPS which knows everything about tollroads though we could mostly avoid this pricy ways. It was also much nicer to drive on sideroads.

After a night at the Achensee we came back to Germany, visited some friends of Gisi and arrived Adlitz in the evening.

Croatia

Our next goal was Dubrovnik, which was destroied in 1993 in the Bosnian war. I saw it before and was a little frightened to see how it is now and Gisi haven’t seen it yet.

We went around the city in a huge queue with our “Blue Wonder” and couldn’t find a space to park.

Later we went to Metkovich, where I was stationed in the Bosnian war to lead a convoi with humanitarian help into Bosnia, how I expected: everything changed I couldn’t even find the “grillrestaurant” and the “coffee-bar” I used to go in, I found only the park in the centre with the trees where they posted their loses. Of course I found the storage place and the house where we overnighted.

Though I got some mixed feelings in remembering this times.

Montenegro

Inspite of the informations fromADAC there was no roadtoll in Albania. After the usual game on the border “truck or motorhome” and paying a so called “Ecotax” we went into Montenegro. Other tourists told us about 10km empty sandbeach South of Ulcinj but meanwhile there are almost 10km sunshades…

By chance we got the next ferryboat to cross the bay of Kotor. There is surely more to explore in this small and nice country, but we are heading Northwest…

Albania in the North

The last excursion lasts 5 days and 4 nights and we didn’t arrived our goal…

We found another road which looked interesting and clearly marked on the map, from Librazhd to Kraste - should be made in two days. The road was a little better and wider than the other one. But a few km before Kraste there was a road-closure due to roadworks, that means we had to go back 15 km follow the “road” westwards 20 km to take a paralelle route. Than there was a delay because the armee blowed up old munition. An hour later, due to the lack of signs we took a wrong northbound road which was really exciting, nice and breathtaking - not only by the view - but lead us “only” into the forest. One more night in the mountains which we spent on the meadow of a sheepcheesemaker, now our fridge is full with his Feta, which he gave us. Of course the kommunikation was very minimized even the rakia helped only very little. Alban is a very dificult language for us, there is no relationship to the languages around, so can’t read or hear any familiar word… But sometimes we met interesting people they speak German or English: so the owner of a Café-Bar she lived for years in New York, the soldier, who stopped us due to the munition blow-up, he learned to speak German in Bosnia from soldiers from the German Bundeswehr and the bodyduard from the Albanian primemimister, he lived a couple of years in Stein near Nuernberg, they all told us a lot about Albania in their own and different sight.

So we heard about a ferry-boat which uses a reservoir in the mountains to bring cars and trucks more comfortable and faster from the far East to the vicinity of Shkoder.

We took the ferry-boat from Fierce to Koman after a calm drive on relatevely comfortable roads through the mountains. The trip on the boat lead us for two hours through breathtaking gorges, which was a nice end of our journey through Albania.

More from Albanija

Kukuri was pretty closed and bounded westwards on a lokal road. We hoped there is a better road than the “non existing” one.

Next day after half an hour driving, which means about 2km, we came to a washed out creek crossing, which was very, very narrow. We put some boulders and stones in the inside of the curve, to stabilize the track. This was not enough the inner rear wheel slided on a rock downhill and was hanging over the creek. It took us six and a half hours - fortunately there were enough stones around - to built a base to lift our motorhome up and bring the wheel in a position to drive, but it was still almost one meter for the rearwheel to climb up. With 4WD and dif lock it worked at the first try.

We never found Kukuri but a westbound road and in the later afternoon some people to ask for the way, they told us to go back, because the road is broken.

Next day we went back and found the road we missed the other day and drove westwards again, the road was a little better, but still I had to drive in reduction and 4WD, the road narrows more and more, twice I hit the rocks on the one side and had only centimeters on the other side where it goes steep down into the valley. A little frightening was the circumstance that the hillside was allways higher than valleyside… after 15 km we came to a huge mudhole, there were tracks from a struggle which ended with the debogging through a caterpillar. I tried to bypass this hole - without bogging in - but there wasn’t space enough. So I said “no thanks” decided to follow the road eastward, drove a few hundred meters back, lost the glas of a rear flashlight untill I found a place to turn around.

Albania

We took a new and small border crossing to Albania everything was very easy and fast; no additional papers and fees, a new road, which is not in our maps, and the nice Balkanian mountains made us feeling happy to be here. The nice market in Korce and the friendly people, a bar with wifi and at least a nice campground at the Lake Orith created an almost enthusiatic mood…

We started into the mountains after we heard about an excavation of ancient Greek tombes near Selce E Poshtme from about 600 BC not very spectacular but in a nice ambiente. We overnighted there, the kids from the nearby village visited us, later the landlord gave us the OK to stay and sent his son to bring fruits and cucumbers.

On the freshly bought Albanian roadmap we found a small lokal road leading through mountains to Bulcar. Though the adventure began…

There are no signs on lokalroads at Xings, you have to ask or if there is nobody to guess. But even there is one you can’t be sure, that he knows the city you want to go or the right way or you understand what he means…

Though we lost the right way and found us on incredible tracks through the mountains, which was really beautiful, we where not really fixed to a specific goal. We ended that day at a nice little lake 1700m high. With the help of shephards we got an idea where we are. Though we made new plans for the next day…