Berat, Albania

Berat is famous for this. They are houses of the Ottoman era. We will visit and take our own photos while we are here.  For now we are staying in  hotel in a modernized building within Berat Castle which is a real community rather than something just put together for tourists. Of course there are tourists but this place doesn't feel like a theme park. We have just eaten zucchinis stuffed with mince and cheese at a local establishment and watched the proprietor of the family business play with his toddler grand-daughter between serving and taking orders. He doesn't speak English but universal sign language has worked well.

F loves Albania. We cossed the border at Kakavia. Everyone both sides was really helpful and efficient. The Coastguard man on border duty on the Greek side petted me while F did the vehicle stuff. No one on the Albanian side asked how much wine we have on board. We don't have car insurance for Albania. Albanians (and half the motor insurers in Europe) know it is difficult for any foreigners to buy car insurance for Albania, so there is a line up of small offices on the Albanian side where you can buy short term cover. We picked an Austrian one.  The Albanian man who served us was friendly and efficient - and has family living in London.

Insurance taken care of we drove carefully and within the Albanian (low) speed limits to Berat. Mr B commented that at this speed we would get 30% more distance out of the fuel in our tank. Very few people seemed to be in any hurry, and many were going much slower than us.

What did we notice? Farmland - fertile, lots of different crops on plains between hills, villages on the hills, houses with complicated, layered rooflines that made them look interesting and attractive.

Not the best or most attractive example

Very little dereliction (as if no one could afford to abandon the existing, but kept it maintained instead). Old men on old bicycles. Old women selling fruit on roadsides - pomegranates and oranges from a couple of  handbaskets; sometimes bags of fresh green olives. Horse drawn hay carts. People riding donkeys. A pile of maize cobs on a tarpaulin beside a house. Someone hand scything a crop. Things like a big garden cultivator (engine, 2 wheels, big handlebars but without the digging bit) towing a trailer with the driver sitting on the front edge of the trailer and a hayload on the back. 

A coffee stop resulted in us witnessing a crash - someone riding a machine that had the back half of a motorbike pushing an old wooden cart with bike wheels loaded with something in bags, clipped the corner of a parked car and tipped himself and his load onto the road. His machine got a bit bent out of shape. People rushed out to pick him up. (He was OK.)

Contrary to the warnings we received, the roads are not bad, the drivers are not crazy, and the people are very friendly. The country might be poor by industrial measures, a largely agricultural economy, but it looks like its people work the land well and care for it and each other. It must be hard graft though doing a lot of work with handtools and wheelbarrows. We saw quite a few oldish guys collecting rosdside grass into wheelbarrows. Feed for a few livestock perhaps? 

People wave to each other, and to us.

Wee OIK - small Orange Interloping Kitten from the farm this morning. 

I saw it doing smoochy cute.

And just for Sandra Madsnapper a picture of one of the farm dogs.

And me co-piloting ....