Albania and Northern Greece 2023: Part Three - Gjirokaster, Albania

Saranda-Gjirokaster – 6^th June 2023

Information on when and where Albanian buses leave from is non-existent. There’s no bus station as such in Saranda, Rome2Rio suggests times that some traveller posted years ago and there are no online timetables. Basically, you show up and ask. A bus might turn up when it feels like it, waits until it’s full and then sets off.

We get to the main square where buses are rumoured to leave at 11:00am and I’m told a bus to Gjirokaster will come at 12:30pm. So, we go for a coffee or three. The bus does come at vaguely the right time, but it’s already full. We’re told to wait and another comes half an hour later and we fight to get a seat.

Our suicidal driver drives us over a mountain pass in the Albanian style - 70mph or as fast as the poor 30-year-old vehicle can manage, overtaking on bends with sheer drops, right hand and ear on a mobile, left hand on a ciggie. There are some beautiful views of waterfalls within valleys.

All information I’ve gleaned suggests we get a bus or taxi from the Gjirokaster bus station in the lower New Town up to the Old Town, but there’s no bus station – we’re dumped on the corner of a square. There’s a queue of taxi drivers. I show the first the address of the AirBnb but he doesn’t have clue where it is and doesn’t speak English. Nor do any of the other drivers who crowd around to help. Then I get a cryptic Whatsapp message: ‘I come now.’ Our AirBnb host has driven down to pick us up. How did he know which bus we were on and when it was going to arrive?

Ali is a lovely, lovely guy, but he doesn’t speak English either, so we don’t really know who he is or why we’re getting into his dilapidated pick-up truck. He drives up a steep hill, then another, then a really steep hill that passes the picturesque centre of the Old Town. Then there’s a hairpin bend, another steep hill and the road becomes truly medieval as we pass the castle, as in it’s the same road they used back then, which is a metre higher on the left side than the right. We cross a bridge past a cluster of restaurants and climb another hill, then another, then another. Occasionally, Ali grunts something that we take to mean ‘this is the way to walk down.’ Finally, at a point which must be close to the summit of the mountain, we reach the Airbnb.

It’s lovely. More of a guest house really. It has two large, clean ensuite rooms and a huge balcony with a stunning view of the mountain range yonder across the valley. Ali makes us ‘mountain tea’ which tastes of lavender and gives us a shot of some non-alcoholic spirit that his mother made which tastes of cough medicine. There’s a small kitchen and, above the door, is a swallow’s nest. The birds sprint out periodically and chomp up flies and mosquitos that might be lingering. Below us is the steep road which we’re grateful to see hosts the occasional bus. Tribes of goats and mule trains pass, dogs bark and the nearby mosque serenades us with the call to prayer. It’s like rural Turkey forty years ago.

It's 3:30pm and we’re hungry because we don’t do breakfast. We walk down the short cut, which is a lovely but almost vertical climb through a canyon with ruins of Ottoman houses. The first of the three restaurants, perhaps to the chagrin of their neighbours, seems to have picked up most of the tourist trade. It’s full, even at 4pm, so we’re seated in their sloping garden which seems to have been appropriated from a war memorial. The main guy speaks good English and is very welcoming. The beer is cold, the food mainly very good with huge, cheap portions. I have something called ‘shapkat’ because I’m intrigued by the translation which is ‘candy corn brownie pie.’ It’s actually a version of the ubiquitous byrek. The beans (gigantes) are literally gigantuous and delicious, as is everything apart from the Russian salad which is a small amount of gherkins and peppers covered by a 400ml tub of salad cream.

We walk down further to the Old Town, past the imposing Castle and its myriad of Cold-War tunnels. It’s very pretty with souvenir shops, bars and restaurants situated around a triangular end-of-block Ottoman house, but it’s small – just three streets.

We decide to go back to the Airbnb and wait, hopefully, at what we perceive to be a bus stop and – Hallelujah! – a bus comes and it’s 40 lek each (35p) to get to the top. Mrs Mad had mentioned earlier that she’d seen someone with groceries coming down the hill earlier, but I didn’t believe here, but yes it seems that there’s a village even further up the mountain than our Airbnb. The ‘square’ has three grocery shops, one of which doubles as a bar, and a bakery. I’m asked where I’m from in Greek. ‘Do you speak Greek?’ I ask, in a sort of Greek, but she isn’t, speaks the language even worse than I do if that’s possible, and assumes all foreigners must be Greek.

I walk further up the mountain because there’s even more of it. I’ve heard there’s an old bridge somewhere. It’s the steepest road I’ve ever been up in my life! Must be a 1 in 2, if such a thing is possible. It leads to a track which I follow alone as Mrs Mad has given up and there’s a dozen or so goatherds gossiping on the side of a mountain. I spy the Ottoman bridge in the distance, take a picture before the men can engage me in meaningful conversation, and walk back to the Airbnb.

Although we’re not particularly hungry, we go down for dinner around sunset, using the short cut once again, which is a bad idea as it’s pitch black by the time we get down. I had noticed that the best Tripadvisor rating in Gjirokaster is given to a restaurant around the corner from the one we had lunch at, so we go there. It’s deserted. A young guy serves us as best he can as his English is patchy at best. I order a pork souvlaki and some wine. Before the wine is served, the boy’s grandfather pours me a raki. And then another. Half way through the meal, as I’m struggling with both wine and raki, the old man arrives with a pot full of sugary tea.

Mrs Mad just has a portion of chips. They’re fine, but there’s not seasoning. ‘Do you have some salt?’ she asks. ‘Salt, salt?’ mutter the boy and his grandfather, desperate to please us but not understanding what we want. ‘Like salt and pepper,’ I offer. ‘Ah!’ They rush off and return with two huge bowls of black pepper. ‘No, we would like salt,’ says Mrs Mad patiently. They return with an empty bowl in which they squeeze six sachets of ketchup. I consult Google translate and find that the Albanian word for ‘salt’ is… ‘solt’. I show the lad. ‘Ah! Solt!’ he says, quickly returning with salt. Then the free dessert – strawberries and cake - arrives half way through the meal.

There are no more buses for the day. We walk up the longer route. It’s a killer. I sleep well.

Gjirokaster – 7^th June 2023

We don’t do breakfast. However, our Airbnb is an actual BnB and they’re proud of their breakfasts, so we don’t have a choice in the matter. Ali and his sister/wife/girlfriend (the jury is out in the Airbnb reviews), whose name may be Lola and speaks some English, are buzzing around at 7:45am because 8:00am is the latest they serve breakfast, because most Albanians get up at dawn and go to bed at sunset, in order to save electricity, and of course they’re an hour behind Greece despite being east of Corfu so sunrise and sunset are really early.

There’s some kind of nasty-looking sausage, cheese and ham toasties, bread, jams, butter, a ton of fruit and vegetables, milk and juice and, star of the show, two over-cooked omelettes. We don’t bother telling them that Mrs Mad doesn’t eat meat because she’s not going to touch any of it apart from the juice, meaning that I have to scoff as much as possible to save face. They leave us in peace and I put most of it into the fridge, hoping they’ll get the message.

Obviously, we need to go to the Castle which is a huge imposing fortress from the outside, and rather plain inside. They could have made more of an effort – hang up a few pictures or tapestries or something. Most interesting is a crashed US Air Force Lockheed which the Albanians claimed to have shot down during the Cold War, but which in fact ran out of fuel in transit between Italy and Greece in 1957. The pilot was released safe and sound. They seem to be preparing for some kind of folk festival, but nothing’s happening whilst we’re there apart from noisy erection of a stage.

Down to the Old Town before the coach trips from Saranda and Corfu can get to the Castle. Lots of Russians everywhere. We visit Skenduli House, a preserved Ottoman mansion from the early 18^th century and one of the few old buildings in Gjirokaster that survived the bombing in WW2 intact. The tour is rushed because the previous party of Americans kept on asking stupid questions and talking about themselves, but good nonetheless.

Mrs Mad is well into Ismail Kadere at this point, so we visit the museum which is in the house he grew up in, just up the road from Enver Hoxha’s, who also came from Gjirokaster. Kadere is the first recipient of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize and has been described as Albania’s Kafka or Garcia Marquez as well as it’s greatest author. His many novels were smuggled out of Albania to Paris a page at a time during the genocidal and isolationist Hoxha period.

The museum is a bit meh… There are some videos with English subtitles, some quotes from his novel and, er…, that’s about it. It’s down the very steep hill, which means we have to return up the very steep hill.

Back at the Airbnb Ali’s mum has made us mountain tea and byrek, which are really good. We go for an early dinner as Mrs Mad wants to watch the final of the Europa B-League, or whatever it’s called, which features a team called Wet Spam. We had asked at a sports bar earlier if they would show the game but they just shrugged and said it would depend whether they had it or not. We go to a third restaurant in dinner-land which is empty. The meal is disappointing – the moussaka is fridge cold and vegetarian, although perhaps that’s what it’s meant to be like. Free dessert is the best baklava I’ve had yet.

The West Ham game isn’t on YouTube, BBC Sounds or anything else I have on my ipad, so we have to listen to commentary on my LiveScore app. This consists of a guy watching the game on TV and describing what he sees. There’s no crowd noises or atmosphere. Still, West Ham manage to nick it at the final breath and Mrs Mad starts shouting in the peaceful warm night, raising a cacophonic chorus from the dogs.