Through Albania and onto Greece

The lower lying coastal area of Montenegro was not for me. It was extremely humid, with the temperature hovering around 20C all day and night. With all the fresh water from the river and lake it was a haven for biting flies.

I tried a couple of places out but they weren’t attractive, and there were heavy thundery showers also. Late in the afternoon I decided to move on into Albania. It took an hour to cross the border, probably at the busiest time of day. Most of the traffic looked like commuters.

I stopped for the night just before it got dark 8 kilometres short of Shkoder, at an eco-farm, a sort of hippie place, extremely basic, but with a good vibe to it. It was as humid, but now with torrential rain. I sat with Roja in the communal area chatting with some Danish cyclist, one of whom had been hiking the Kungsleden at the same time I was on it last year. More mosquitos drove me back to the van.

Today I drove though Albania and into the Western Macedonia area of northern Greece, across the same border I had cycled over 5 years ago. It took 5 minutes.

I’m done with the low-lying humid areas for now, and considered spending some time in the Albanian mountains, but in the end the hop over to Greece won. In those coastal areas where the humidity is so high and mosquitos rampage, the filth of the area is more apparent. Albania seems worse than Bosnia and Montenegro for litter, though 5 years ago I found them equally bad. I have travelled mainly in the mountains and I think more if an effort has been made in National Parks. It’s not an easy problem to solve, but in order to attract any significant number of visitors, it needs to be done.

At the Greek border the officer looked for a long time at my passport stamps, and mentioned it was because of the 90 days following limit Brexit. I asked him how long I now had, and he clearly said 90 days. I believe he is wrong, and that it should be 90 minus the days I have had in Schengen in September, but quite happy to quote him should the need arise.

Once across the border I headed for the town of Kastoria. I had researched a place to stay at a viewpoint by the Elias church above town on a piece of land the juts out into Kastoria lake.

It’s was the longest day of driving I’ve had for a while, at about 5 hours, and not straight-forward either, on some challenging Albanian roads, and through Tirana also. We arrived just after 4 pm, Greece another hour ahead, and so had time to walk for an hour or so, and take a beer in the cafe that overlooks the lake.