Tour de (Western) Balkans 2023

We cross into Albania at the Tre Urat (Three Bridges) border crossing. Both the Greek and the Albanian immigration and customs officials are incredibly friendly. One of them teaches us some basic Albanian while we wait for our passports to be stamped. Then we pedal off and duly cross one of the Tre bridges. We immediately head North on a road paralleling the river. Less litter than the Greek side, which isn’t really saying much.

We soon find a lovely spot for a picnic and push the bikes onto a grassy slope, near beehives, and tuck into to the usual fodder of delicious Greek bread, cheese (a bland cow cheese after the much better sheep or goat), the jam from the beeman, cucumbers, apples, and biccies. Shortly into this picnic a police car cruises along and parks up on the slope opposite and two burly men get out and disappear up the hill side looking quite unlikely. As soon as we pack up and leave they re-emerge and head back to their car.

Onwards to a great climb on a perfectly fine road that went up and up past terraced fields, some vineyards (pruning all done) hand tilled between the vines Ali! Truly back breaking. Snowy ridge in the distance and blazing sunshine. The standard car a Mercedes Benz with 2 to 4 people in it – either young men with shaved heads or older couples. Most wave or toot and no dodgy driving, all give us a wide berth. Donkeys and horses or maybe mules start appearing, as do the standard dilapidated Albanian concrete bunkers from Hoxha’s era.

Our first village looks concrete and corrugated iron scruffy. A group of youths are being taught to dig a community plot by some worthy looking middle aged ladies. The lads look seriously underwhelmed.

We join the road from Gjirokaster to Korçë and all my visions of hell evaporate. It’s pretty potholy but there’s lots of evidence of road works to widen the road and most importantly it’s almost empty. The few cars there are remain just as mellow as our first road in Albania.

We finish up early at Farma Sotira, an agriturismo place with little lodges (we justify this with two key killer arguments: it’s v cheap, it’s v cold) on a working farm and are greeted very warmly by owners and dogs. Albanian dogs so far: they are supermellow, they don’t really care about cyclists, they don’t bark, the ones we’ve met so far just want to be stroked and scratched and the ones on this farm are no exception. We go for a walk in the woods and watch the riders come galloping back to the farm and do some dog scratching.

Supper was quite something: a plate of pickled, halved green tomatoes defeated even me, sworn pickle lover. But the rest was delicious. Pickled beetroot, stuffed peppers, grilled courgettes, meatballs and a massive plate of sliced fruit.

Breakfast is equally delicious – home churned butter, fresh bread still warm from the oven, fried eggs, plum jam and feta. We get back to find that Friendly Dog has carted off one of our bike locks and one of our Bikes of Inverness water bottles as play things across the field. Attempts to retrieve them are met with playful jumping up which is somewhat freaky for a cat-lover faced with a massive dog. Eventually he gets bored and we get the mangled bottle back. The lock thankfully unharmed.

Onwards towards Korçë alternating empty, imposing, treeless mountain views with wide plains. We get cheerfully waved through the road works and on we pedal. Erseke is all scrappy round the outside, a few very modern empty buildings in the centre, young bored men and children playing football. Some older women but not very many younger women around.

Excellent picnic in the plain in the shelter of some scrub land watching the rain clouds come in, and that is us then off with a massive tail wind and heavy rain, weaving our way up and down the various tributaries of the main river, up to a very new very fast road blasted through the mountain side that spits us out in the plain of Korçë at high speed. Further picnic sitting on the edge of an irrigation canal.

Korçë at first glance slightly disappoints – but definitely grows on you after a good meander through the bazaar area and the older streets. It is FULL of fancy restaurants. We end up in one and disappoint the waiter by ordering only vegetable dishes (all delicious). Next to us two blokes sporting the (stereotype alert) Balkan hoodlum look plonk themselves down. We work out that Jon is also currently sporting the Balkan hoodlum look (shaved head, beard, black puffer jacket). I’m sporting the Balkan Granny look (flowery skirt over black leggings, thick socks, scrappy jacket over jumper, buff on head to all intents and purposes like a head scarf). Still, the two lads next to us would not look out of place in the protection/racket business. Nor would Jon for that matter.

We head out of Korçë in the morning on our first experience of main roads as there aren’t any other options. It turns out to be the best main road cycling I have ever experienced. The road is very wide all the way to Progradec, with a really wide hard shoulder that sees not just bikes but pedestrians, blokes with wheelbarrows, the occasional donkey all using it. Consequently cars are super respectful – nothing like the close passes you get on the Kirkhill to Inverness road.

The highlight is our first sight of Lake Ohrid. Really spectacular. We cruise downhill around lots of hair pin bends into town.

Pogradec is buzzing with Sunday tourists along the lake front all in their Sunday best and we fail to find a good picnic spot near the Springs but end up sitting on a concrete ledge near a crash barrier just next to the Border crossing, randomly with a forelorn looking old lady sitting near us with whom we share our food.

And that is the end of Albania #1! We both really enjoyed it, found it super friendly and very welcoming. Really looking forward to going back – a place of religious tolerance with mosques right next to churches, friendly drivers, beautiful landscapes (if somewhat treeless) and delicious food. And an advertisement for the longevity of a well-tended Mercedes Benz.

We are planning on heading back into Albania after a stint in North Macedonia.