“Albania,” he declared.
“ALBANIA? Seriously? What’s in Albania? Why Albania?” I asked
I have a friend, Dennis, I went to university with who is a teacher in Canada, and often he will come over during his summer holidays to my place in London to use as a base to explore Europe. Sometimes he’s off on his own, and sometimes I join him for part of his trip.
This year, in planning our joint trip, he suggested Albania.
So, what is in Albania?
Albania. Al-ban-ia! You border on the Adriatic. Your land is mostly mountainous. And your chief export is Ferroalloys. You are a parliamentary democracy, a candidate for EU membership.
Updated from Coach’s original in the Cheers episode
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As to the why, it stems from last years trip we did to Copenhagen, where we met up with a friend of mine and some of her friends. As I was engaged in conversation with the other half of the table, Dennis was querying some of the more seasoned travellers on places to visit. Albania, with beautiful Adriatic coast and rugged interior came up, buoyed up by the fact that it was still a bit “undiscovered” and thus, cheaper than other options on the Adriatic like Italy, Croatia or Greece.
In a complete coincidence, I was on Instagram later that day, and a couple friends of mine I follow who are currently doing a backpacking round the world trip posted photos of their time in Albania. I asked them how it was, and they said they liked it,confirmed it was indeed one of the cheaper European destinations, and gave it a thumbs up. They did say that intercity public transit wasn’t great, and that driving was not advisable as Albanians are a bit loose with the rules behind the wheel. Advice noted I got to planning.
And so the wheels were set in motion for a trip to Albania. Unfortunately, I was a bit short on time, as I already had plans for the August bank holiday weekend to be in Edinburgh for the Fringe festival. Five full days with seven nights was what we had, and I plunked together an itinerary taking in Tirana (the capital city), some time on the coast in Durrės, and a bit of hiking up the Gatmi mountain.
Before the trip I decided to pick up some Albania Lek (the local currency), but after trying a couple exchange places, found out that the Lek is a closed currency, and can only be acquired in Albania itself. However, some internet searching found that the Euro is widely accepted, and it was trading at €0.995 to 100 Lek, making it relatively simple to calculate the exchange. Once in Albania, I found that people would quote you prices in either Euro or Lek interchangeably, and most places would take either Euros or Lek (or a combination of the two).
In this trip report: