Crossing our third border today

We took the bus across to Albania this morning. Can’t comment on the views too much as I was catching up on sleep! Luckily I managed to stay awake after passport control as the views when entering Albania were stunning! We were so high up in the mountains and you could see lots of stereotypical Albanian things that we had read in the lonely planet (unfinished houses, bunkers and plenty old Mercedes Benz cars). It was all quite surreal.

Due to having such a crappy night sleep in the hostel the previous night, we decided to splash out and get a hotel room. I say splash out but it only cost us €15 each and it was luxury!! Albania is very cheap. We also went out to quite a fancy restaurant called ‘Era’ with amazing food / wine and service (they had someone there just to open the door for you and a lounge area to wait for your table- that’s how fancy it was.) we thought we would be spending a bit over budget but it all came to less than €20. Crazy!

We thought we (well Stéphane) would brave the crazy Albanian driving and hire a car for a few days to visit other towns around Albania seen as it was so cheap! €35 for 3 days! We decided that getting comprehensive insurance and a sat nav would be a good idea so that bumped up the price a bit but still less than €20 a day each- not bad! It will get dropped off tomorrow after lunch so we will have the morning to explore a bit more of Tirana before we head off! :)Read more