We got up and did breakfast in our hotel. The included breakfast here at the Hotel Espana is just enormous. We work hard to eat a sizeable amount of it. We always feel bad that they make so much and we really cannot eat it all. There is just more than we can reasonably eat!
After breakfast our project for the day was to drive down to southern Albania and get a feel for the area. We have only just barely gotten to see the coast and much of the available or accessible coastal areas are south of here. So we wanted to be sure that we got to see that stuff.
Going south for a ways, the Albanian highway is pretty good. They are working hard to get highways put in and built around the country as fast as they can. A decade ago, I have heard, there were barely any paved roads in the country. Now there are fast roads going all over. It’s not extensive, but it is surprisingly good for the region and worlds beyond where we had been led to believe that they currently were.
The first place that we attempted to go to was Spille. It did not take us long to get to where the road turns off to head to Spille on the coast. We missed it as there was no exit but just a tiny, no warning turn off for it. You really had to know to be looking for it and exactly where it was going to be.
I managed to find a sort of drive way not long after the Spille turn off and just took that and drove a little dirt path that went along some fields and got us back to the road. A little bit adventurous there.
The road to Spille was a lot longer than we had anticipated. It wound up around some hills and went through some really lovely areas but it was also collapsing in places and in several spots the road had fallen away and in one the whole road was so damaged that we had to inch forward.
It was an interesting drive and the condition of the road made us wonder how Spille could have any tourists visiting it. This was not a place for the faint of heart to drive. Very accessible, but not exactly casual.
Once we arrived in Spille we were even more confused. We drove up to the beach, or as close as we could get, and there was no tourist infrastructure at all. Once up to the frontage road there was an obviously protected stretch of pine forest against the water and behind it a line of small hotels mostly in poor repair. Some were being worked on while we were there, some looked like they were no longer in use. It was a bizarre place with these weird hotels all in a row, away from the village and separated from the beach.
At the end of the row we came to a dirt road, a disaster of a flea market, a well advertised and clearly collapsing hotel, the Blu Mare, a Roma woman living in a tent, loads of trash in the street and a little spot where we could access the beach. It was all very strange.
We circled back and went through town on another road. This one was a little better. There were a few, nicer, bigger houses in town and some shops and such. But it was all still quite strange.
We tried to get to the beach by another way. Of course, we used Google Maps, foolish us. Google turned us onto a “road” that was listed like any other. It was dirt and started off okay. Well not okay, but passable. And not passable by two cars, really just a dirt path through fields witch ditches on either side and no way to get through without driving all over the road to keep the car from bottoming out.
The road got worse and worse and we couldn’t figure out if we should go back or turn around. Nothing was a good option but we decided that we could not go on. The road was just getting to be so bad.
We got out onto a larger road, still dirt (and I mean DIRT, not gravel or rocks) and found a spot where the car could do the manoeuvre to make the turn around and in doing so we bottomed out lightly and after that I heard some odd sounds while we were driving. We were only creeping along, even five kilometres per hour would be generous. I got out and there it was, part of the front bumper torn off. Just what we needed.
We were not in a place to deal with it at all but we could not move the car without doing damage. I crept along and got the car off of the “road” so that the farm equipment could get by. Here Dominica and I got out and really took a good hard look at it and figured out that with enough strength we thought that we could get things back into place. We worked and worked and we managed to snap things back together, more or less. It was enough pressure to cut my hand a little, but not too badly. We were really impressed with ourselves for getting things “fixed.” It is definitely not actually fixed, but it is not hanging low and going to tear the car apart ten feet up the road now, which is exactly what was going to happen if we had not been able to fix it. It would have been a total disaster had I not stopped the moment that I heard the noise. Imagine if I had just not had my window down!
We did what we could to get back to a gravel or paved road. Even with the car back together it was really hard going. We got very lucky that we managed to drive out. That took a long time and was exhausting.
Back on the collapsing road we just drove back out of the Spille area the way that we had come in and went back to the highway and headed down towards the south. The next place to check out was Vlore, much farther south. Vlore is a small port with its own bay.
Getting down to Vlore the highway that we were on stopped and we had to take normal roads through a few towns, which was slow going, before we got to an autobahn which was amazing. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a super high speed, very different type of highway zipped us right down to Vlore and… dropped us onto pot hole filled roads so bad we almost could drive down them! So weird.
Vlore turned out to be a really nice city. Much more like we are used to in the rest of Europe. Clearly it is developing quickly and they have not figured out their internal roads and water front yet, but they seem to be making some good progress and have some stuff in place already. Vlore is actually a nice city on its own and has water front a well. Not just water front with nothing behind it.
We parked the car and walked around Vlore a little bit. We tried to find food but place after place was serving coffee only. Very frustrating. We got directed to the Hotel Bologna so we word our way over there and inquired at the front desk.
The front desk was not sure if they were serving food today as they had a wedding this evening so they had to check. The chef came out and said that they would make space for us. A huge hotel restaurant and we were the only people in it. So weird.
Dominica was nearly passing out from all of her motion sickness medication which made ordering food a little hard. I went for the red mullet which turned out to be half a dozen small fish in the European style of being full fish, not fillets. I know that I am adapting to being a European when I don’t have a problem taking six fix and eating them without a problem even with the head, tail and bones all intact. I both can “handle” the situation and I know how to do the actual eating which itself is confusing and challenging if you have never had to do it before.
The food was all quite good and the hotel was actually an excellent spot with lots of its own waterfront. It had a very classic Adriatic waterfront and a little playground. So after we ate we went out and let the girls play for ten minutes or so and checked out the patio area.
From the hotel we went back to one of the cafes along the main pedestrian way, one that Liesl liked because everything was decorated in flowers and Luciana liked because it had a playground. We ordered some coffee and sat outside while the girls played. It was a little chilly as it was windy and stormy and the sun was blocked but it was not too bad.
After the coffee and some gelato, which we had finally located, we walked back to the car and reversed our journey back up north to Golem. The drive back took far less time than the drive down. Without the Spille stop it really was not bad at all. More than an hour, but nothing dramatic. It was a good trip and we got to see a lot of stuff. We have a much better feel for Albania, now.
We got back and the girls just wanted to relax and play in the hotel room as they had been couped up in the car for so long. We just had an early dinner at our hotel. It is impossible to find any places to eat of interest on the strip. They all look exactly the same from the outside. And most are closed. Just makes the most sense to eat at our own place.
Tonight a storm rolled in. Rain and thunder over the Adriatic.