Saturday, 29th June 2019 and Sunday, 30th June 2019
Saturday morning we woke up in our spacious sea view room at the little hillside hotel in Durrës. The staff and owners of this tiny hotel at the end of the boulevard in Durrës were ever so friendly and had prepared a really good breakfast with local products x local white cheese, boiled eggs, juicy tomatoes and crispy cucumber as well some spicy small sausages accompanied by some good bread. Both Gerry and I had to catch up with our mails and blog so after breakfast we moved our stuff out of our bedroom and settled on the verandah were we had really fast Wi-Fi. By 12 noon we were ready to move on and thanked the guys at the hotel for their hospitality. Really upto now we have only encountered fantastic Albanians who are most helpful and polite.
Back on the road again, I installed our TomTom to drive down further south to Vlorë – also a seaside town with a 7 kilometer beach front. Both Durrës and Vlorë are seaside towns which have expanded in the last 20 years in their race to catch up with the western world. Actually Durrës is a port city only 36 km west of the capital Tirana. As I mentioned in my last blog, Durrës has grown to include high rises along the beach front, loads of cafe’s, restaurants and night clubs and we were glad that our hillside hotel was situated at the other end of the beach front as we could not hear all the music going on in the center of town.
Our drive to Vlorë was quite uneventful – apparently we used the 2 day old highway which our TomTom did not recognize. This (partial) highway decreased our travel time and we were happy to get into Vrole just after 3 pm.
We were now staying at Mini Hotel with Maxi Rooms and indeed we were pleasantly surprised when Armando showed us to our room on the 6th floor of the sea front building.
Once we were settled in, we went out for a walk along the boulevard – this is really magnificent and has only been in place for the past two years. The palm trees still need their support as obviously they had been planted as adult trees along the boulevard and the beaches need more clean sand.
As we strolled along the beach, there was a gentle sea breeze which was most welcoming as the sun was still too hot – we were too tired to get our swimming gear on and go for a swim but it was already nearing 7 pm and we were thinking where to have dinner this evening. So we crossed over the boulevard and walked along the different restaurants and coffee bars – the waiters were friendly and inviting us in however we kept on walking till we noticed that some traditional restaurants were roasting lamb over a charcoal BBQ – we stopped at one of these restaurants and of course we were invited to take a look. The waiter told us that they were having a party that evening as it was the boss’s daughter’s birthday. Actually besides preparing various lambs to be barbecued, they were also rearranging tables so that they had a clearance in the middle for dancing. So we stopped for a drink and immediately we were given a plate with some roast lamb to sample.
Anyway, we stayed at this restaurant and had a good meal with Albanian prices (cheap) while we were being entertained as well dressed family and friends arrived and were congratulating the parents on their daughter’s ninth birthday. All the little girls were dressed so prettily ( but I couldn’t get myself to take any pictures as I felt I was intruding on the family’s privacy)
Well we stayed a t the restaurant, and watched sun set through the palm trees – interesting g to note that we’ve been watching sun set for the past three evenings!
By the time we left the restaurant , it was quite filled up with guests and even though we were invited to stay on, we said we had an early day the next as we were travelling to Sarandë. So we strolled to the other end of the boulevard with loads of locals all doing the same – the Albanians are very family minded and for the weekend stroll along the boulevard, they are all well dressed – on the way back we stopped at a Gelateria for Gerry’s daily ice cream.
Back at our hotel, we first enjoyed the view (and the musicJ from our balcony and before long went to bed.
Tomorrow it’s going to be a long drive to Sarandë – it’s not the kilometers but the winding roads through the mountains and along the coast!