Outing to Kruja

Monday, July 27, 2009--Tirana and Kruja

Happy Birthday to Sue!

This morning, I stopped first at a travel agency to buy my bus ticket to go into Macedonia tomorrow. Then I walked to the bus station for buses going to Kruja, a fortress in the mountains about 45 minutes outside of Tirana. I was lucky. A furgon, a shared van, was leaving just as I got there.

Unfortunately, Kruja was a bit of a disappointment to me. The setting is wonderful--high on the side of a mountain with views far away. And the exterior of the fortress was impressive when seen from town. But the inside of the fortress consisted of a museum and lots of homes. And most of those homes have been turned into pizza restaurants. The city also has a nice old market street with wooden shops, but all of these shops now sell souvenirs and antiques. It's quaint and pleasant, but.... I only stayed up there for about 1 1/2 hours, then I caught another furgon back to Tirana. What I have seen in Berat and Gjirokastra is much more impressive.

I bought a pizza pikante and took it to my room for lunch. I ate half of it then and saved the other half for tonight. In between, I spent much of my time reviewing my travel literature. I need to plan my itinerary around the Balkan area more specifically--place to place rather than just country to country. Today, I figured out where I will stop in Bulgaria, which is my next country after Macedonia. I've already got a plan for Macedonia. I have about 5 weeks, so I need to finish this planning so I can see if I will run out of time or have time to stay longer somewhere or to add another stop or two along the way.

In the late afternoon, I walked though Blloku. It's the most fashionable part of town with nice shops and cafes on tree-lined streets. It's also the area that was restricted only to higher-level communist leaders under communism. I was there yesterday, but Sunday is a quiet day here, and I wanted to see what it is like on a weekday.

It's interesting that there is such a cafe culture here. I think it must go back to the communist days when there was nothing to do. TV and newspapers were controlled. Foreign films were limited. Shops had nothing to sell. My guess is that people had nothing to do but go to a cafe and sit and visit with friends every day. It's amazing how many cafes there are here and how full of people they tend to be.

I'm a bit worried about tomorrow. I am going to the Lake Ohrid area of Macedonia. It's the HOT vacation spot there, and this is the time for Macedonians to take their holidays. Therefore, I worry about finding a room and, if I do, finding one at a decent price. I'm hoping for elderly people who meet the buses trying to rent rooms in their homes. In fact, my plan is to go first to Struga which is on the lake but not the hot spot and stop there for the night thinking that a room will be easier to find there, especially since the bus will arrive late in the afternoon. Then the next day, I will take a morning bus to the town of Ohrid in hopes that the elderly will have newly vacated rooms they are trying to rent before it gets too late in the day. I'll have my fingers crossed. If it doesn't work out, I'll have to just change my plans and go elsewhere.