Exploring more of Albania
We headed towards the coast the next morning, after our first two days in Albania in the national parks within the country. The road led us through a small town, which was very busy since it was a Sunday and we enjoyed seeing all the locals since we didn’t meet many Albanians so far. Our first stop was in Durrës, the second biggest city after the capital. We had a delicious coffee and fresh orange juice in another very busy restaurant on the main square right next to the Great Mosque of Durrës and then strolled throught the city and visited the Amphitheatre of Durrës, a very impressive roman amphitheatre with a capacity of 20,000 people. before we left Durrës, we stocked up on groceries for the next days and also treated ourselves with a pizza. We were in “driving-mode” and therefore decided to drive all the way down to Vlorë, another town on the coast, where we wanted to spend the night. On the way, we stopped at Apollonia, an ancient Greek colony city. It was a very nice site to look at, besides the one million mosquitos who seemed to enjoy it as well.
Advantages of an Offroader
Since it was already getting dark, we decided to look for a camping site but many of the places we found were already closed. Nevertheless, we found a place in the end right at the beach and and cooked some Fajitas with the left-over Pitas from the night before. When we got up in the morning, I motivated Tom to do a workout with me and afterwards we quickly jumped in the sea and took a warm shower before we took off again. Our next stop was Gjipe Beach, a place that, based on the reviews, required not just 4x4 but an Offroader to get to. We reached the parking and before we entered the very offroad path we got rid of some air in the tires. There was a German father with his two kids, who were watching and we invited him to ride down with us in the car - i’m not sure if he felt very comfortable because the road was indeed VERY bumpy :). When we got to the beach, there were a few locals down there too who ran a little camp site down there which was mainly for tents. They were filling sand bags to fix the beach since a storm destroyed a lot of it. The camp was closed but the owners told us that we could just park straight at the beach, since there weren’t many people coming down anyways. We took advantage of the pole position and stayed for two nights straight on this very private little spot. During the day, there were a few visitors, one woman from Switzerland who was riding her bike all the way from Lausanne to Greece and another two couples who were also travelling on their bikes. They had to levae before it got dark because they slept at guest houses up in the village so at night we were all by ourselves. It was beautiful but also a bit scary to sleep all alone down by the sea. We once even quickly googled the tides, because suddenly, we were a bit unsure about how far the water would come up. But we were fine and the second night, we already felt very safe in our spot. We enjoyed the sun, played some card games, read books and cooked dinner (Foccacia on the frist night and Pasta with a delicious pumkinseed-pesto which we brought with us from Austria). Life (and the weather) was treating us very well.
Meeting fellow travellers
After two nights down at the beach we figured it was time to see another spot. We thought it would be nice to take a warm shower and therefore started looking for a camping site. We found one that was open, Moskato Camping close to Himarë. When we arrived, we were the only guests, besides a family who was travelling in their offroad camper with three (!) kids, but they were just packing up. The owner ensured us that he stayed open and we could stay as long as we wanted so we told him that we would go the city for some breakfast and to get some groceries and then come back. When we arrived at Himarë, it seemed like we were the only tourists again. Eventhough, there were a lot og guest houses and hotels, they all were closed and even most of the restaurants we closed as well. We found a place where we could order a coffee and Tom got a Gyros for breakfast, I decided to get some yoghurt at the grocery store and make a Muesli back at the camping site ;). Then we drove back and picked a nice spot to set up our little camp. We used the time to facetime with our parents, write the blog and to do a workout and of course take a nice hot shower. Later that day, some more guests arrived and they were all from Switzerland and Austria. One couple from Switzerland we even met before on a camping site in Montenegro. This really seemed to be the only camping site that was still open in the area, therefore, everyone ended up here. We all ate dinner at the retaurant and the owner and his wife cooked delicious menus. We had a fun night all together, telling us about our different experiences we made on the road.
Spooky bunkers
The next day, everyone was leaving again to take off to different places. We decided to check out a wild camping spot right at the beach that actually wasn’t very far away. So we left just before noon and arrived shortly after at the spot. It was BEAUTIFUL, a perfect little secret beach and also very clean, which was amazing after all the trash we saw laying around everywhere. Just when we parked our Defender, another Van joined with a guy travelling alone. He parked a bit further up, we talked for a bit but didn’t bother us at all, there was plenty of space. The sun was out, so we went for a swim and enjoyed the weather at the beach. Tom went for a little stroll and met some of our friends from the night before, they came to see an old military submarine bunker. We also went to check it out. It was huge, old, rusty and a bit spooky. The others there told us that it was a tunnel going to the other side of the land tongue and over there, the military was still using it.
Before it got dark, we went back to the Defender to think about what we would cook for dinner. We then realized, that we completely forgot to fill the water tank at the campsite, and we were almost out of water. There was just enough to fill our two bottles, the Bialetti for the coffee in the morning (essentials!!) and one pan to cook something. We decided to make a “Rösti” which we brought with us from Switzerland and cook the “Käsekreiner”, an Austrian sausage Tom loves and found at a Deli-Store in Montenegro. By the time we started cooking, it was already dark and we had to use lamps to see what we were cooking.
Last stop in Albania
We really loved this spot but since we literally didn’t have a single drop of water left, we had to leave the next day. The sun was out again so we still stayed there and enjoyed the beach until around 2 pm until we drove on. We found two very nice looking camping sites right next to each other at the beach close to Borsh, a place a bit further south. We drove there and found another dirt road leading towards the places. When we arrived at the bottom, we found both camping site closed and there was nothing else around there. All restaurants were closed as well, so we couldn’t fill up the water anywhere, there was no other choice but to turn around. It was soon getting dark so we were thinking about driving to the next (and last) bigger town in Albania, which is called Sarandë, and just find a little Guesthouse or Hotel there. I was checking for places while Tom was driving but I couldn’t find anything nice for a reasonable budget, we didn’t want to spend too much. I found another camping site that seemed to be open in Ksamil. I called to check if they were actually open (better save than sorry) and they were, so we drove on for another 20 minutes. We received a very warm welcome from Linda, the owner of the Ksamil Caravan Camping, she showed us th spot where we could park and made us some tea. We aksed if there were any restaurants open close by and we were lucky, there was a pizza place and another small restaurant still running. We filled up our water tank, took a shower and went for a stroll around town and enjoyed a nice dinner at the restaurant.
We found another few nice spots where we could camp wild, so the next day we took off in the morning and wanted to drive towards the beach. On the way, we stopped at an amazing bakery, the served great coffee and had so many sweets and different bread. While we sat there, suddenly the guy from Austria we met on the camping site a few days ago stood at our table (the camper world is a very small world indeed). He told us that he was camping down at the beach with a bunch of other campers and that it was a super chill spot. So we decided to check it out as well. There was plenty of space even though about 5 other vans were there already. After we parked the Defender, we talked to the other campers and many of them wanted to look inside the Defender to see how we lived, since it is not the very common “van” to travel around in. On the other side of the bay parked a huge overlanding truck. It was too big to fit under the trees on “our” side of the bay where we and all the smaller vans parked. Tom and I were curious and walked over there to talk to the couple who lived in the truck together with the two cutest dogs. Andi and Bianca (the owners) and Tinka and Kurt (the dogs) were from Austria and super nice. We chatted and chatted and checked out our homes on wheels and then decided to share an “Apéro” (we put together what we both had in our storage: some negroni we brought from Switzerland, wine, beer, cheese and chips). Tom and I have seen another Gyros-place that was open in town so we decided to walk there all together for dinner. The next day, Tom and I wanted to do some Yoga in the morning and Bianca joined us. Unfortunately, after half an hour, it started raining. We quickly packed up our stuff. Bianca and Andi wanted to drive on to Greece so we decided to join them. The weather forecast didn’t look promising for the next days so figured the time had come to leave Albania as well. We exchanged our phone numbers and made plans to meet again in Greece at the Vikos Gorge later that day.