Day 17 – May 2 Monday

It was breakfast at 6.30am.  As we were having breakfast from the dining room we could see a cruise ship appeared & turned into the new port of Dubrovnik for its day trip.   In the bus by 7.10am for the drive out back past the Dubrovnik old town & heading south again.  We stopped for a photo shoot on the cliffs looking back over Dubrovnik, it was sunny today & looked a treat.  A very large private yacht had moored overnight outside the old town.  We liked beautiful Dubrovnik very much, no wonder it is a favourite destination for holidays.  The trip south followed the cliffs around & the views were spectacular, though a little scary at times with the very long drop.  We stopped for another photo shoot overlooking an island (can’t remember it’s name) that had been turned into a resort for the rich & famous, (what a shame) it looked like a prison.

Our next stop was at the Croatian & Montenegro border for passport control, before continuing on to the Montenegro town of Kotor, another medieval walled city that has quite spectacular battlements rising up the steep mountain ranges behind the town.  This town is different than other walled cities in that the moat is still full of water, a fast flowing spring from the mountains on two sides, the bay at the front & the walled mountains behind (we didn’t attempt to climb it this time, the walls go up a very steep mountain & we only had a couple of hours).  Again, limestone is the material used in the construction of the walls, buildings & pavement.  The buildings look very similar to the Diocletion Palace in Split & the old town in Dubrovnik.  Kotor has smaller & less churches but it seems just as many tourists.  It is a lovely place to holiday at.  The majority of the buildings seem to have a shop catering for tourists.  The other significant thing we noticed was the number of lawyer’s shingles displayed – there must be a healthy amount of litigation in Kotor.  We wandered around most of Kotor, taking photos of the interesting bits & marvelling at the history, before stopping for lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants for a Montenegro pizza & coffee – delicious.  Back on the bus at 11.40 & south again through a very long tunnel, then the landscape changed to spectacular mountains, with a cloaking of cloud on top, treed valleys & poor farmland.  As we kept on through Montenegro the houses got worse, mostly a state of disrepair & the road was markedly worse, down to a one lane country potholed road mostly.

The border into Albania was a long wait in the bus, before we were allowed to move through to a cafe/souvenir shop just over the border so that we could have a welcome toilet break, buy a coffee, have something to eat & buy some Albanian souvenirs.  It was a long queue for the toilets & also the souvenir shop, it had some good stuff in it & they sold quite a lot to our tour group, plus the other bus we were with.  After we had spent enough money our passports were returned & we were on our way. The border guards must get a good commission or own the cafe & gift store. The Albanian road into the capital Tirana was a marked improvement on the Montenegro road, the level of prosperity in Albania seemed greater as the houses were in a better state of repair & the farms were tended a lot better.  The big downside was the amount of rubbish laying around & the amount of rubbish laying in creeks & rivers & caught in tree branches – disgusting.  The driving is also a lot crazier in Albania than anywhere else on this trip, they seem to overtake everywhere, once again we appreciated the skill of our driver.  There are a real lot of roadside memorials to people that have died in accidents.  At one stage we counted more than ten in a 2km stretch of straight road.  The traffic in Tirana was heavy & hectic, but we were pleasantly surprised by the number & quality of modern buildings, plus a lot of colourful high rise apartments.  There is major park restoration work in the city centre, right where our Tirana International Hotel is.  However, the mosque is very close & we have heard the call to prayer a few times already. We won’t need the wakeup call tomorrow morning I am sure.  The hotel was a pleasant surprise a high rise modern building, we are on the 8^th floor, the room is very pleasant with a computer nook & free internet, it’s a corner room so we have 2 windows with a view of the centre of town.  None of us felt like going out, we have been spoiled by the beautiful old historical towns, poor Tirana has the communist regime history from which they want to claw their way out of, they desperately want to get into the European Union.  We had dinner in a very pleasant dining room – risotto for starters, crumbed veal with a sauce & chips ( chips 1^st time since we are on the trip)  & a really lovely light something like tiramusu desert.  They served soft drinks, local beer & wine (alcohol for these Infidels).