Not all who wander are lost
We set our to Kruje from Tirana on our last day of our Balkans Gate 1 trip, enjoying the fresh air of the mountains and the cradle of Albanian culture. The drive, which should have taken 45 minutes, ended up taking 2 hours due to typical morning rush hour, which didn’t let up until after…
Having visited Elbasan earlier in the day, we arrived in Tirana around 2PM after encountering heavy traffic. Our hotel, Hotel Boutique Kotani, was very central to Skanderbeg Square (another one!), located a few blocks from the national football stadium (Air Albania Stadium). The hotel itself needed some updates – the decor, central air, elevators and…
Leaving North Macedonia came with some definite reluctance, even though our time ahead in Albania was something we were looking forward to. Ohrid and Skopje ended up being some of the unexpected highlights of our Balkans trip so far, and came with a number of surprises and delights. The road to Tirana, Albania from Ohrid…
After a magical first night on the Ohrid waterfront, we were looking forward to exploring the surrounding area and old town more. We learned that the correct way to pronounce Ohrid is to put a bit of a “kh” sound after the h (OH-KREED), something all of the Western travelers in our group had trouble…
Sad to leave the majestic capital city of Skopje, but excited for the continued adventure, we packed up from the Marriott Skopje hotel after breakfast and got on the road to Stobi. Our plan for the day entailed a lot of driving, or at least our bus driver Dragan and his Dragon doing most of…
After our Skopje tour, Alex, Bobby and Ann met our driver organized through the Marriott Skopje hotel in the lobby for our afternoon trip to Pristina, Kosovo. The day before we got to work getting in touch with a Kosovo guide contact, Bekim, that Nida had, and also started figuring out with the larger group…
