Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia (2)

Today was 9-11. I wondered what the rest of the world thought about it.

We came down to breakfast to a throng of French people getting their breakfast too, and taking all the chairs. This is Tom sitting in the front lobby trying to eat his breakfast. It was not pleasant.

We stopped at this lake for a break from driving. And we came to understand Flori likes to have a cigarette every hour or so. Robert and Robin like to have a coffee mid morning so it all works out. After my original 6 am morning coffee I don’t drink coffee so I ended up eating a lot of ice cream while Robin drank her lattes and Frappuccino’s. I had great willpower in not ordering a piece of one of these cakes! m-m-m-m.

This guy has a statue of himself in almost every country in Europe and Asia. Apparently he gathered all the different factions of Albania and talked them into working together against the Ottomans and now he is their hero. Working together against a common enemy seems like a no-brainer but I guess he was the one that brought it about. Sometimes his name ends with a U and sometimes a G. Don’t ask.

This photo tickles me pink. I can just imagine all these retired men leaving their wives in the morning in their suits coming to yak away with their friends and do nothing.

This is a Russian MIG leftover from when they were a communist country.

Lots of pictures of the hillside of homes and the flag at the top which was Berat castle. These homes are now under UNESCO and because it’s so expensive to maintain them people no longer live in them and they become hotels. Parking is also a nightmare.

I started taking pictures of these boards because I realized I was not getting a lot of information from our tour guide.

Flori dropped us off and we slipped into the Catholic Church so I could light a candle in honor of my grandmother who did so every Saturday of her life.

I did not go inside this mosque but it was right next door to that Catholic Church.

Views of farmland on our way out of Tirana.

They are very proud of raki, a 50 proof alcohol made from grapes (and other fruit). When I mentioned I had raki in Turkey they clearly told me it was not raki it was uzo. Uzo is licorice flavor and I definitely did not have that in Turkey. Albania loves their country and their language and has a going competition with Turkey and they (at least Flori did) despise Italians. In general what I glean is they are rather sexist and nationalistic also.

I realized before this time that Flori’s driving helped make me nauseous going up and down those mountain roads. Anytime there was any amount of space in front of him and behind a car, he’d hit the gas and then would immediately have to let off the gas before hitting the guy in front of us. He also did a lot of jostling left and right trying to stay close to the driver in front of us so that he could duck out and pass him quickly. But what we got what got me even more nervous was when he had a shot of rocky with lunch and then had another shot right before we got in the car to drive up the mountain to the castle. I witnessed a car coming out from behind the mountain at us in the middle of the road as we were also flying down in the middle of the road. We both got into our separate lanes and slammed on the brakes and stopped within inches of our car. Robert and Robin are so polite they never said a word and so I didn’t wanna be the big baby. In order to stop my nausea I learned that if I put on my noise cancelling headphones and either looked at Facebook or listened to a book on tape or bought stuff on Amazon I would be oblivious of the crazy driving going on. That day I ended up buying 300 bucks worth of stuff on Amazon. (But at least I wasn’t nauseous.) One of the things I ordered on Amazon was the pressure point wrist bands that help avoid motion sickness.

The winery was simply beautiful. I have never seen a winery or a vineyard where the grapes grow from the ceiling and they were huge and deliciously ripe. Weddings are held here. They serve farm to table food from the vegetables they grow in the garden.

There was always a tomato, cucumber onion salad along with a cottage cheese dip with roasted red Peppers and beets. Olives and some kind of feta cheese was always on the menu also. The meat you see is goat and chicken. the cats we’re happy to eat the scraps after they drove their claws into your leg trying to get on your lap.

Berat castle was a lovely place we stayed where the rooms were totally updated. The public areas were very unique with many antiques and part of the old castle. The stone room was public, but when we trying to walk through it to get down the mountain, we found it was locked. I tried to find another way out from our room and saw none. I was prepared to climb through that little window above Tom’s head when Robert came out of his room and unlocked it for us. It turns out there was another big old black door that was an exit from our room, but I never would have guessed, without Tom showing me.

That was pretty much how the rest of the trip went — we didn’t understand things and things were not explained to us and we had to figure it out — which we did but by that time, it was too late

Once in our room we took a tour around the area and did some walking on the walls. Once again here are the scenic views of the city below. And lots of rocks.

We encountered this glass floor in the restaurant we ate at for dinner. Underneath were objects from hundreds of years ago from this castle.

More scenic views of the city below. Coca-Cola is everywhere; however I’ve noticed the red is gone and black and brown are the colors on the tables and the umbrellas for Coca-Cola.

This is the hot water heater powered by solar energy on many homes in the area.

We toured the Church of the Holy Trinity before we left berat castle.

Once the ottomans took over the Catholic churches they painted over the icons because pictures of people and faces were not allowed in the Muslim mosques. It was many years later the icons were discovered behind the white plaster. I found it ingenious to use sand to put the lit candles into.

Photos trying to show the chaos of tourism and cars and walkers all smashed into tiny little places. Often cars would have to back up in order to stop a total traffic jam.

Cigarette stop for Flori so decided to get some exercise and go down the steps and get to beach level.

Another cigarette stop but found it interesting. CLICK.

Another old castle walls with tourism along the streets.

A plaque to memorialize people who fought communism .

Another castle. But this one was quite intact and they used it as a museum and to house the huge Howitzers and cannons of World War One and two.

The Albanian Army-Air Force were proud that they forced this American plane, piloted by a first class instructor, to land. And they proudly displayed the plane. Unfortunately vandals have stolen many parts of the plane. Flori contends the pilot landed on his own and was not forced down by the Albanians — but we’ll never know.

At yet another castle. The Princess and her child chose to jump off the edge of this castle rather than be captured by the Ottomans. Her child survived the jump and I think it would have been sad for the mother knowing that the ottomans raised her child.