Leaving the mountains

Today we left the mountains (later we understood that in albania, you can't leave the mountains for too long!)

We didn't wait for the public minibus, but joined a local jeep that our guest house owners organized for us.

Almost two and a half hours, most of it on unpaved road in bad condition, squashed in the backseat of the car, jumping and praying for our lives while enjoying the beautiful scenery-and we were back in Shkoder.

Like in the local minibuses, throughout our journey we heard on the radio what must be the inspiration to the great Israeli band "Balcan Beat Box".,,

In Shkoder we had some local pizza and were happy to meet Edmond and the blue Landrover again.

We picked up the rest of our stuff from Florians guest house ( we only took the bear necessities with us to the mountains), and headed to our next destination: Berati.

Berati is a very picturesque village situated on both sides of the Osumi river.

The old town's houses are glued to the hills and to each other and form a famous photo that can be seen on posters of Albanian tourism.

We stayed in a big "communistly built" hotel (hotel Europa - 30 eur incl breakfast) in the center of the town, with AC and s big window looking at the castle and old city.

Surprisingly, here too the shower has no curtain or glass around it. A strange Albanian habit that we encountered in other places as well...

We spent the rest of the evening strolling (with many local tourists) a modern avenue leading to the old beautiful quarters.

We had another pizza, this time on our hotel roof, watching the city and a thunder storm that came from the mountains but only rained for a few minutes and left..

The next day we visited the beautiful Berati castle. There are some nice souvenirs shops and cafes next to the castle.