Albanian Alps part 1

📌 We flew into the capital and headed for the mountain base of Shkoder via a small minivan company at the airport, we were used to the organisation and chaos of this kinds of transports since travelling eastern Europe last year.

📌 Shkoder was a beautiful town and the the guesthouse was a gorgeous 200 year old renovated building. We left our things the next morning and headed off early for a long transport day into the mountains. It began with a bus ride full of various tourists and we soon began to make friends with some older Australians from Brisbane. The next part of the journey was a 2 hour boat cruise up river, this was chaos! An old boat, overloaded with obnoxious people seemed to be a nightmare but as people gradually got off at the most random spots and once the day trippers left, the boat was more roomy. It was a very beautiful cruise in the end, the autumn colours were beautiful. We then finished the journey with a short bus ride (a little chaotic as not enough seats) into Valbone where the hike would begin.

📌 Given it was borderline end of season, most things were closed so we headed to one of the few restaurants that were open and ran back into the Australians. We had a nice chat over some wines and food before making our way back to prepare for an early morning hike.Read more