Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia

Albania: Saranda, Ksamil, Corfu Channel

I got back this week from Albania where I decided to spent some time there for my vacation. I haven’t been in Albania since 2001 and I expected to see new things there and I was quite good surprised with their latest development. We went to visit beautiful Saranda a place in Ionian Sea, Ksamil Islands and Corfu Channel. Since Albania had elections in 3rd of July there weren’t too many people there, so the place was quiet and wonderful.

We went to visit also some historical places located near by such as old city Butrint, and other tourist places. When you take vacation then you realize how nice is to have that. We spent wonderful time enjoying all the best things and bugs that Albania has. On the way to Tirana from Prishtina after we passed the Macedonian border, after 5 KM Macedonian police stopped us, it was around 05:30 AM and he warned us that we were going to fast in fact we were driving fast but we were smiling from ear to ear and saying the only word we knew in Macedonian “Izvini” which means “Sorry”. When he saw that we are not trying to hide and to defend our self but we accepted the fault and didn’t care at all, he released us but he still was thinking to charge us but this time we were lucky

In Qafe Thane (Mac-Alb) border we have been waiting for an hour to get in, and Macedonian border police didn’t request any document from us they let us go and in Albanian border where it was almost the same, but we had to wait a bit. After we got in it took us 2-3 hours to arrive to Durres. The most annoying thing was that road signs don’t shows the exact number of kilometers so we were fooled for 40 KM.

We stopped in Adriatic Sea and in afternoon we went to Tirana, cause in the midnight we had to go to Mother Teresa Airport to pick up our special friends who came from abroad. So all four of us departed with my friend’s car (Jeton) toward Saranda coast, our Golf II car didn’t stopped at any time and the best driver Jeton drove so quickly so we arrived in Saranda in afternoon.

I was assigned to go and search for place, we met one guy who offered us a house to rent but the house looked nice but not great. I was insisting not to take that since I didn’t like it at all. Then we were searching for one hour for other places and couldn’t find any good one. Everyone was blaming me for decision I did not to take the first offer, so just by chance I went to ask in one hotel about the prices and accommodation. The lady of hotel in the beginning offered me 35 euro for a room, and after I managed to communicate with her pretending that its heavy expensive and in the mean time applauding her for the place she has we agreed for 22.5 euro a night, I went down and called my friend and I told him to fight for 20 euro for a night and later I will join him since I promised the lady that I’m going to try to convince my friends to take 2 rooms with her price, so later I joined my friend fighting for the last price. I like this way of communication, not because I was looking for cheap price but I wanted to win the battle.

I told to the lady whom later I gave her new name as “spy lady” that for 25 euors you are loosing 400 euros, not mentioning the other 25 of Jeton, and she agreed and we took 2 rooms with sea view in the most wonderful place for only 400 euros for 10 days, trust me in Tirana was more expensive than in Saranda. The room had everything, air conditioner, tv, “good shower” and everything we needed. The lady from hotel was monitoring every single move we did, she spent her day in balcony spying and checking. She could work for police and get more.

Then day by day we went also to Ksamil Islands, and after few days to Corfu Channel and in Butrint. The Ionian Sea was perfect, clean and non visited place, so we could stop in any place we wanted. We also really enjoyed the food I can say, but there is a need to train better the waiters, I remember one of us asked, “What does the fish contains” the waiter responded “Fish”. There is more need of costumer and tourist care, but compare to last year’s my vacation in Turkey, Albania was perfect. People of Saranda are nice and they don’t try to cut you in price and steal.

After 10 wonderful days we spent in Saranda, we got back to Tirana and we stopped in Durres again on the way back, Durres was full of people, full of kids, I was wondering that there were more people swimming rather than staying in beach. We couldn’t survive that mess and we went back to Tirana to spend the afternoon there.
We had dinner and coffes in Sky Tower of Tirana, and in the midnight we had to go to Airport to send our special friends back, they flew at 05:00 AM and we got back to our new rented apartment in 05:30.

Exactly in 06:00 AM one constructing company started to work in one huge building in front our place, there was too much noise so we only slept 3 hours and woke up to drive back to Kosova. We went through same way back with good memories we had. On the way back we didn’t had any problem so we arrived safe.

On the way back stopped in Struga (Macedonia) to have some drinks, and it was such an annoying thing because the waiter didn’t want to accept Euros at all, and for 100 Denars (1.6 Euro) we had to go and search for exchange money offices and change them into Denars so we could pay, even we had 2 Euros as a coins. Since a friend went to change the money I was teasing the waiter asking him if I could pay with my Master Card, If I could pay with my mobile credit I have but they all envied me, I wanted to show how bad I am sometimes.