St. Spyridon

Both Jan and me were heading off early around 9am. I had a mostly flat route to Berat with good road conditions (according to the guy from the campground) ahead of me, but didn't wanted to arrive around lunch time already. Jan went off north to North Macedonia.
It was a pretty scenic route through rural Albania. I cycled through lots of little villages, endless stretches of farmland, also seen some oil raffineries on the way.
Arriving in Berat, I had to push my bike up a very steep hill to get to the hostel. Also, there was a construction site right on the way and I wasn't sure whether I could actually get through. 😅 The people working there were really friendly and soon a lady approached me in English. She is a construction engineer supervising the construction site. She was the only woman there and I was quite impressed. Haven't expected a woman to be in this position in Albania, I actually haven't really gotten into touch with woman in Albania generally. From my impression, they are way less present in the daily life compared to other western European countries.
I arrived at a beautiful hostel (Berat Backpackers) around 1pm, got my stuff sorted and showered. The hostel itself is amazing, it's in one of the historic buildings in Berat and a very cozy place with multiple terraces to hang out outside. Soon after I arrived, I met Chris, Lucas, and Jon again. We were hanging out outside talking and playing UNO, for which we made up our own rules due to a lack of special cards in the deck.
Rules included: you can make up a new rule anytime one changes the colour, which ended up in "communism" scenarios where we collected all cards again, shuffled and distributed equally, and times where we were only allowed to speak Spanish (works for everyone but me) and German (works for everyone but Jon). In one game, we decided that the person having the most cards wins once we run out of the drawing deck. 😅 We had so much fun playing. 😁

In the afternoon around 4pm we went on a free walking tour with an Albanian guy called Bruno. He's originally from Berat and explained us a lot about the Ottoman Empire, the social benefits of being of a Muslim back then, and the communist time. We finished our tour in the castle on top of a mountain. It's the only castle in Europe (? Not sure anymore) which still has people living in it. It's basically a little village with houses, shops, and restaurants in it. After the tour, we met up with a French couple and went into a traditional restaurant in the castle for dinner together. We ordered a lot of delicious food and shared it. :) It was a fun dinner, we were six people from five different countries (Argentina, UK, USA, France, and Germany). We talked about languages a lot, since half of us (Chris, Lucas, and Jon) are really good with languages and I realized once again that I really want to learn Spanish at least. 😅

In the evening of my first day, we were sitting together until really late talking, drinking wine and enjoying some nice conversations. :) We were a accompanied by a very cuddly and highly pregnant cat, that kind of belonged to the hostel (they call her Racoon 😀).

The next morning, Chris and me went up the castle again for sunrise, which we missed because we got stuck watching a dog bullying two free running horses inside the castle. 😄 It was really funny to watch and we gladly missed out on sunrise over the mountains for it. We then went back for breakfast at the hostel around 9am. We got burekts with different fillings, some fresh tomato and cucumber, and break with fig jam. I then went back to my room for some rest, but felt pretty sick just shortly after the breakfast. 🙈 It didn't get better until the afternoon, where I finally threw up (sorry for the details, but it I felt so much better after). 😅😄 Weirdly, nobody else felt sick from the food and we all basically ate the same thing. My stomach was still struggling a little so I didn't actually eat anything that day anymore and had a low tolerance for smelling any kind of food. 😅 Still, I got myself together and went to a coffee shop with Lucas and Chris, where I had a coke. I also managed to buy some bananas in the grocery store, but felt like laying down again after, which I did. Lucas and Chris were cooking pasta in the evening, I didn't feel like eating though. Pretty tired and exhausted I went back to bed at 9pm and fell asleep shortly after. The three of us had already booked a hostel together in Vlorë for a night the next day, however, I wasn't sure whether I would be able to cycle already. 😅Read more