We hesitated for a few moments. Should we go to Albania? Shouldn’t we go? The main question was, would we ever come back to this place? Probably not. So we decided to go for it. Before I give any more information, I have to explain that the excursions were with a guide. A bus passed by the hotels to pick up the clients and went on. We never did have any freedom to visit Albania. All the stops in Albania were organized, nothing was spontaneous. And that, my friends, was a pitty.

But how about the excursion?
Crossing the border took a lot of time, really a lot! I think we’ve lost more than an hour, waiting for the border police to let us through. We weren’t allowed to take pictures or anything, we were only allowed to sit in the bus :-).

We went to Pogradec and Lin.
Pogradec was a rather big city. We visited the market – where we were more like animals in a zoo, because all the people were watching us :-). We also visited the “walk of fame” of Albania, with names like Charles Darwin, Anne Frank, Jean. J. Rousseau, Beethoven, …

Lin was much more like I imagined it would be. In Lin they didn’t had electricity for a long time, I think they only had it recently. It was more authentic than Pogradec; but on the other hand, it makes you wonder, because the trip was really organized so you wouldn’t see or pass by dangerous or really poor areas. I don’t think we saw the real Albania…

Pogradec
Lin
Lin