The South

So we decided to go to the south of Albania for a few days-almost a week.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this trip, but all the conversations leading up to it included “Shum e Bukur” (very beautiful), so I was looking forward to it. 

Driving in the south was adventurous, but that was mostly because of the roads themselves, though the drivers were quite aggressive still.  We traveled on curvy mountain roads, with vertical cliffs off one side, and the potential for rockslides on the other.  Did I mention that at any point, you could come around a curve and find livestock crossing the road?  I’ve even given our trip a name in honor of this phenomenon: Albania. Land of Random Cows.  [link to pictures]  Additionally, the lack of infrastructure in the country means the roads are not very well maintained, or more frequently, just being built.  This means that in some places we were driving on new pavement (no lines), and in others, dirt roads with potholes.  Before we left, I kept hearing “The road (notice the singular noun there, there’s no “roads,” it’s just one road to the south) to the south is good now.”  I should qualify here that “good” is a relative term. 

I have to give my husband credit; he did an amazing job driving.  Though I know it probably killed him inside (Curves! Hills! Fun!) I felt quite safe with him at the wheel despite the vertical drop of thousands of feet to my right at any given moment.  The views from the mountains were amazing as well.   We stopped several times just to stand in awe for a few minutes.  The drive along the coast was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.  I understand now the “Shum e bukur” the Albanians were talking about.

We stopped in several cities – Fier, Vlore (ever been to the restaurant on Boylston Street?) Sarande, Gjirokastra (the city itself is a museum city, this site had some amazing photos of the town), and even sailed to the Greek island Corfu (I’m writing this on the ship trip back to Sarande).  In Fier, we stopped at the ruins of Appollonia, a 700 hectare archeological site that was built in antiquity and was only recently uncovered in the early 20^th century.  Our guide, an archeologist himself, showed us ruins that were thousands of years old; his English was quite good considering he was quite drunk (they don’t get many visitors in the off-season, certainly not foreign visitors, and there’s a restaurant built on-site). 
I have to say, the South was one of my most favorite parts of the trip - the scenery is amazing, the small villages are unique, and the sea is...serene.  I cant wait to go back, frankly.  I could bore you with a long post about how wonderful and beautiful the south is, but I figure since a picture is worth a thousand words and is much easier to post, I'll just leave you with some pictures:

Edited to finally add a video I found of the view in the south.  In Llogara: 

I cant wait to go back.