Macedonia/Albania/Kosovo

[DiegoDiego]

I'll have three weeks or so in the South Balkans next month, flying in and out of Skopje (Alexander the Great airport: world class trolling of the Greeks there). I was there a decade ago but it was a fleeting visit and I'd like to go more in depth this time, focusing on Albania and Kosovo.

 

Does anyone have any good tips? Restaurants, pubs, overlooked towns, transportation issues, decent football this late in the season?

 

For Albania, I feel I should allow at least one day to parade my bleached pins on the coast but would like to steer clear of the overdeveloped towns where the seafront is lined with ten story cheap hotel blocks. I'm considering Ksamil, spitting distance from Corfu. Any ideas on what that'll be like this time of year?

[Squirrelhumper]

We stayed in Veles for the Scotland game in 2008. Cracking wee place.

Hotel was called Hotel Romantique

First class.

[DiegoDiego]

The football's shaping up quite nicely for me now. The Macedonian cup final is the day after I arrive and also I'll be in Pristina for Kosovo's first game as UEFA members.

[DiegoDiego]

I returned home yesterday. For anyone stumbling across this thread in the future, here's a short summary.

 

Macedonia.

I found it fascinating due to the blatant corruption and slow transition to dictatorship. They've transformed the centre of Skopje and every shoddily created statue was overpriced and the difference pocketed. For example, they've planted willow trees in the river at an official price of €200,000 each. They were unnecessarily flown in from New Zealand and even taking into account such extravagances should only have cost €40,000.

Bitola was a nice city with excellent Roman mosaics half an hour's walk from the centre of town. The site is a lot larger but hasn't been excavated due to lack of funds, I'm sure they'd rather have willow trees and shitty statues though.

Ohrid is beautiful but prices have risen a lot since my last visit and with the onset of direct flights from Luton will likely increase. Not much of interest besides walking around the lake, some old churches and a bit of hill walking.

 

Albania.

An excellent country to visit. It's very cheap (lunch and two beers at a cheap restaurant, three course meal and bottle of wine at the best restaurant in town, plus four glasses of wine at various cafes came to just over a tenner in total).

The main cities each have a very different feel to them which is a nice change to regions like central Europe where it feels like you're visiting the same old town square no matter where you go. The scenery is stunning, beautiful mountains topping out at 2,750m plus a long coastline. There has been very little foreign investment so the country retains a very Albanian feel, I'm not sure supermarkets even exist outside of the capital.

There's plenty of interesting stories in Albania which the locals don't often deem worthy of mention: a girl who was offered thousands of Euros for her Italian passport; a guy who bought a fake Italian passport, made it to Dublin and spent a week in jail before being deported; someone whose brother was a dentist but never sat any exams and simply paid for his qualification; farm labourers earning €50,000pa for tending marijuana crops.
The people are very open and friendly, and not due to social norms as is often the case but out of simple curiosity and, to be blunt, most of them have nothing else to be doing anyway. The women are very good looking. I'd place them and Moldovans as the most attractive in Europe, they're also the two poorest in Europe but I'm not how much of that is coincidence.

 

Kosovo.

It was very interesting to visit Kosovo after Albania. Both are almost entirely populated by ethnic Albanian's but as a result of politics have been separated by one hundred years of history (and for fifty of those, Albanian's weren't allowed to leave their own country). So it was interesting to see how the two countries have diverged. My initial impressions were that Kosovans were fatter and worse drivers (Albanian's have only had cars for twenty-five years). Aesthetically, Kosovo is a shithole. There has been no regulation to the planning and with so much destroyed in the war there are half-finished buildings dotted around the country and the main roads are lined with light industry for their entire length.

There are some decent sights and beautiful nature in Kosovo, but nothing which can't really be found elsewhere. My highlight was undoubtedly a day in Mitrovica/Mitrovice where I wish I'd stayed a couple of nights. North of the river is mainly Serb and the south is predominantly Albanian. Payment in Euros on one side and Dinar on the other. In the Albanian half young people sit outside at cafe's sipping espresso while in Serbian areas old men hide away in tiny pubs drinking beer. I was there on Monday and of course in the Serbian part there was much good natured ribbing about Djokovic's victory over Murray, they don't like Ana Ivanovic though as she posed for a photo with Clinton (who has a statue in Pristina).

 

In short: Macedonia decent, Albania very good, Kosovo interesting.

 

Berat, Albania.

 

View from my guesthouse bedroom window, Theth, Albania.

 

"Kosovo is Serbia - Crimea is Russia" mural, Mitrovice Mitrovica, Kosovo Serbia.

[doonhameronthedon]

Cheers for that. Interesting read. Did you make the football?

Loved the food in Macedonia, only visited Skopje though so maybe a trip to Ohrid next time.

[DiegoDiego]

Cheers for that. Interesting read. Did you make the football?

Loved the food in Macedonia, only visited Skopje though so maybe a trip to Ohrid next time.

 

Kind of. The Kosovo match was moved to Frankfurt once they became FIFA members which was a bit annoying. It turned out nobody really gave a f**k though and most places switched to the Albania-Ukraine match when it kicked off half an hour later or didn't change back after half time.

 

I did go to the Macedonian Cup final and made a slight change of plans to go to the Albanian Cup final. I wrote about both of them in the "Random matches I am going to" thread.

 

Football in the region is a bit strange. You get very few casual fans at games. If you follow domestic football, you're hardcore. In the Macedonian Cup final there was a large element of (Albanian) nationalism at play. The percentage of attendees that were female was less than one per cent. People love football as much as anywhere but watch foreign stuff on TV. Bookies double as cafes so most folk nurse a beer over a few hours in them to kill time. I met plenty of folk who were very knowledgeable about Italian/German football but knew nothing about their domestic league.

I can forgive them to an extent but I watched the Europa League final with an Italian who said that he didn't "support any Italian teams" but he "liked Barcelona". That c**t epitomises the biggest problem in modern football.

 

It's a bit baffling to see a team like Rabotnicki only have 400 fans at a cup final in their home stadium but knock Trabzonspor out of the Europa League. I think for Scottish football to regain its standing we need more p***ks like Di Stefano turning our clubs into money laundering/status building enterprises. We could also do with more refugees, in or out. Look at the Albanian team: what happens in Kosovo stays in Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Switzerland, USA...

[welshbairn]

Thinking of a fortnight in the region in September, maybe centred on two locations, renting a flat for a week in each. Looking for fairly compact places where you don't have to trek for miles from restaurant to bar to supermarket etc, but have a bit of city bustle, ie. not a place just designed around tourism, doesn't have to be big. Any tips welcome. Thinking more towards Albania than the other two, but happy to be convinced otherwise.

 

[vikingTON]

Vlore in Albania is the best 'compact' city IMO. A classic 'Mediterranean city perched on the seafront' vibe, with local beaches west of the city centre: quite similar to Thessaloniki* to my memory. Durres has the Roman amphitheatre but I wasn't so keen on it overall (although I was also feeling ill while visiting, so maybe not the most impartial verdict). 

Sarande is technically 'touristy' by Albanian standards but it's hardly Benidorm. I suspect Albanian cities don't have a proper off-season either, as most of the visitors are internal or from Kosovo. Even if that was the case, the Butrint archaeological settlement and the Ksamil beaches are within an easy local furgon ride. Gjirokaster is also a slightly longer but easy day trip too. I'd happily spend a week in Sarande in identical weather to Corfu at a fraction of the price. The local Greek-owned bar that was selling fantastic wine at 100 lek (70p) a glass two years ago would be worth a visit on its own. 

I haven't been to Kosovo yet (hopefully this summer) but the only viable place for a week in Macedonia would be around Lake Ohrid. Which is very nice, but a week would be too long to stay in one place. Ohrid or any of the other lake towns can be comprehensively covered in two days and would probably be boring after four. Combining Skopje (or other destinations) and Ohrid en route to Albania over one week would make more sense. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* not the western beaches

Edited March 26, 2022 by vikingTON

[vikingTON]

NB: For anyone visiting Sarande, Taverna Peshkatari 2 across from the stadium and near the fisherman's port (NW from the passenger ferry terminal) does an outrageously good seafood fritto misto washed down with the local wine.

Other seafood places are also widely available in that part of town. 

[DiegoDiego]

Just landed in Tirana this evening. Jolly excited to be back.

Heading up to Shkodër tomorrow to catch up with some folk and relax there for a few days, it's the best city in Albania as far as I'm concerned. I've also got Berat, Korçe and some beach time around Himarë planned.

[Barney Rubble]

7 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

Just landed in Tirana this evening. Jolly excited to be back.

Heading up to Shkodër tomorrow to catch up with some folk and relax there for a few days, it's the best city in Albania as far as I'm concerned. I've also got Berat, Korçe and some beach time around Himarë planned.

Enjoy!!

Hoping to get back over to Tirana myself in April.

Mind those bicyclists in Shkodër!!

[Squirrelhumper]

Done Macedonia in 2008 and Albania in 2018 for Scotland games. 

Macedonia was scorchio - game was shite but you could see Skopje was a developing city. My mate went back with his missus a few years back and said it was massively improved in some parts, almost so much so you wouldn't recognise it. 

Tirana was nice too. Was November, would have liked to have seen it in warmer weather. 

[Squirrelhumper]

Meant to add, we stayed in a places called Veles for the game in Macedonia and just went to Skopje the day of the game. 

[Ekhibee88]

Albania is really interesting, I enjoyed Berat and Tirana. Sarande wasnt really my cup of tea. Getting around is fun with no timetables on the buses as such.

[welshbairn]

On 04/04/2022 at 20:23, Ekhibee88 said:

Albania is really interesting, I enjoyed Berat and Tirana. Sarande wasnt really my cup of tea. Getting around is fun with no timetables on the buses as such.

What's up with Sarande? Early thoughts are flying to Brindisi, ferry to Igoumenitsa in Greece, another to Corfu, from there to Sarande, bus to Vlore and ferry back to Brindisi. Over about 3 weeks in September/October.

[Arch Stanton]

On 04/04/2022 at 16:44, Squirrelhumper said:

Done Macedonia in 2008 and Albania in 2018 for Scotland games. 

Macedonia was scorchio - game was shite but you could see Skopje was a developing city. My mate went back with his missus a few years back and said it was massively improved in some parts, almost so much so you wouldn't recognise it. 

Tirana was nice too. Was November, would have liked to have seen it in warmer weather. 

Ditto and loved both particularly Skopje, the people were incredibly friendly.

Tirana was also great other than several pubs and clubs in Blloku being for "locals only". A 10 minute walk to the other side of Skanderbeg square and you were in bars where the locals couldn't be more friendly. 

Spent the afternoon in Shkoder before the game, as was said being November it got dark at 5pm so didn't see much but again the bars and restaurant we were in were cheap and good quality.

[Adamski]

We’ve just booked to go to Albania this summer - flights to Corfu and ferry from there.

Looking at staying in either Ksamil or Himare, and spending some time in Gjirokaster, although not sure whether it’s a day trip or somewhere worth going for a couple of nights.

Taking our kids aged 8 and 6, who probably won’t get overly excited about long car journeys to historical sites, but hoping to sneak a bit of that in. Hoping we can balance a bit of beach time with cultural stuff.

Has anyone ever hired a car in Albania? Thinking of doing that.

Any tips for that area in general most welcome.

[Tight minge]

It was a long time ago now, but drove down through Albania when I lived in Budapest. The coastal road was very poor with heavy traffic.  The drive from Macedonia to Tirana was out of this world! I don’t have pictures on my phone from that leg, but the scenery was amazing and the drive fantastic.

I guess a lot has changed (for the better) since I was last there, but it is a fantastic place and no real issues with driving.

[vikingTON]

11 hours ago, Adamski said:

We’ve just booked to go to Albania this summer - flights to Corfu and ferry from there.

Looking at staying in either Ksamil or Himare, and spending some time in Gjirokaster, although not sure whether it’s a day trip or somewhere worth going for a couple of nights.

Taking our kids aged 8 and 6, who probably won’t get overly excited about long car journeys to historical sites, but hoping to sneak a bit of that in. Hoping we can balance a bit of beach time with cultural stuff.

Has anyone ever hired a car in Albania? Thinking of doing that.

Any tips for that area in general most welcome.

Gjirokaster can be covered in a day, quite comfortably. The historical part of the city is really quite small - very nice - but it's not exactly Rome. Would be easy to do in a day trip with a car from Ksamil, probably Himare as well. 

It's a steep and windy climb from the coast to Gjirokaster, but the views are exceptional for a drive. 

[DiegoDiego]

The south-west is probably my least favourite quadrant of Albania. There are some nice villages near the coast like Vuno and Qeparo (whose old village on top of the hill seems to be having a fair bit of renovation and will probably be a great place to go in a couple of years). Himare is a decent enough place to base yourself as well. Sarande doesn't really have much going for it, and neither does Vlore, other than the topography. That whole coast doesn't hold much interest for me, though everyone has different ideas of what they want a holiday to be like.

I'd imagine that most people looking to go to Albania are somewhat interested in finding out what makes it different from other countries, and you really don't get a great idea of what Albania is all about in places like Sarande or Vlore. Not just as they're not very "Albanian" (they have fresh produce in supermarkets, for example) but also because they're getting pretty used to tourists, one restaurant I went to in Vlore even had a menu in Polish.

So for those reasons I'd definitely advise a couple of days in Gjirokaster if you're down that way and have the time to spare. It's got a long and interesting history, being the birthplace of Hoxha and Kadare, as well as more recently having Europe's largest marijuana plantation nearby. There used to be a cutlery factory there and you can still see fences in the city made of sheet metal with fork, knife, or spoon shapes punched out of them. Albania's full of quirky things like that but you generally need to spend more than a day trip somewhere to discover such things.

Like I said though, I'm not a huge fan of the south coast. If that sort of place does interest you then maybe take my recommendations with some caution.