Sometimes life is funny. Driving back from
Çorovodë to
Berat I suddenly got diarrhea and the bus driver kindly stopped at the next gas station. In fact it was no serious problem but I missed the bus back to Tirana and had to wait in Berat. And who did I meet there? - Roberta and Fulvio who I already met at the
beginning of the Albania trip.
In Çorovodë I met an older couple from Germany who is living since years in south Italy. (They are traveling the world as often as possible and one day the noticed that the have seen so many countries but not the nearest one - Albania. They were as amazed by the country as I was.) They convinced me not fly home but to take a ferry to Italy and then a train back home. OK. The next bus from Berat drove directly to
Durrës so I drove there and booked a ferry.
As everybody also I have prejudices and one is that I don't like cities with large harbors. Durrës has a large harbor and is also not very beautiful. But OK, lets give it a chance:
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| View along the Bulevardi Epidamn. |
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| A typical scenic view. |
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| The town hall. |
One of the few things I knew about Albania before the journey were
the famous bunkers. The former Albanian leader
Enver Hoxha got the idea to build a bunker for every fourth inhabitant to protect the country against an invasion of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia or whoever.. Due to their amount it will take decades to demolish them and so you can find a lot of them all over the country.
The
Royal Villa of Durrës was heavily damaged during the
lottery rebellion in 1997. It is therefore still closed but is used as scenic background for weddings. While reading the interesting article about the rebellion you might listen to the amazing live version of
Ton Steine Scherben - Der Traum ist aus.
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| The Royal Villa. |
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