Heading to the North

As we couldn't stay more in Gjirokaster, we sticked to our initial plan and went to Vlorë. The owner of the hotel organized a taxi for us, and after a delicious breakfast and the last swim in the swimming pool, we were ready to depart.

On the way we could admire beautiful Albanian landscapes, bunkers and omnipresent flags (mostly Albanian, but also U.S. and EU :)

 

Vlorë was supposed to be only a stopover on our way to Shkodra - to the north of Albania. Thus we booked a very simple room, a bit in the middle of nowhere. Upon we arrived there, we concluded it was not the best idea, place was not very nice, surrounded by horrible blocks and it was far to the centre.

The day wasn't totally lost though as we met a very good friend of mine, who was staying in Vlorë with her husband and his Albanian family. After the dinner we spent a pleasant evening with them in the centre.

Since this trip was relatively "easy", I very much wanted to sense the adventure, and long before we arrived to Albania I planned to get to Shkodra by train. And to this end we planned our trip accordingly. We made a stop-over in Vlorë and the next day we were supposed to take a train. Trains in Albania are quite old fashioned, definitly not very comfortable, but this is what I very much wanted to experience. Upon arrival at the train station we bought a tickets, just to learn 15 minutes later that this train was cancelled. I couldn't believe it! I planned it for the last few weeks and my adventurous journey would not going to happen... Well, we didn't have a choice, but to take a taxi in order to get to Shkodra...

On the previous day we booked a room in Shkodra on booking.com, so we knew where we were going. Interestingly the son of the owner was an Albanian living in Brussels :) After a quick refreshment we went for a walk to the Old Town. Shkodra is one of the oldest cities in Albania - founded in the 4th century B. It is also called a Cultural Capital of Albania.
 
The main attraction of Shkodra is the Rozafa castle, however it was a bit too far from us. We decided then to visit only the city centre, which was a few minutes walk from our guesthouse. I had no clue how Shkodra looked like, and once we started visiting, I was really amazed how beautiful this city was. Nothing to do with ugly blocks and communist architecture. It was a very pleasant and charming place.

 

Cathedral of Saint Stefan - main Roman-Catholic sanctuary in Skoder

After a delicious dinner in Vino e Pasta, we were wandering on Shkodra's narrow streets, admiring the lovely architecture and colourful buildings. Some were renovated recently, others still needed some rebuilding. The main pedestrian street - Rruga Kole Idromeno was very alive and full of people. It looked so.... European :) At its end we were enjoying a concert of local stars :)

Sometimes it's great not to have any expectations, in order to have such a nice surprise later :)