ALBANIA – Shkodër (En)
Albania is a small country with Adriatic and Ionian coastlines and an interior crossed by the Albanian Alps. The country has many castles and archaeological sites. A piece of advice if you want to come driving make sure that you have Albania included in your car insurance. The insurance of our motorhome only covers the European Community and we have to pay 145 euros at the border for a month’s insurance! And they told us that we must cross into Greece no later than June 7. So our stay in Albania has been shortened to one month.
Our first stop in Albania was Shkodër, the fifth-most-populous city of the Republic of Albania and the seat of Shkodër County and Shkodër Municipality. It is one of Albania’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, with roughly 2,200 years of recorded history and it was the capital of Albania until 1920.
We stayed at Camping Lake Shkodër Resort (42.138699, 19.466801 lat, long) located in Shkodër Lake a beautiful place with its own beach. The camping is 5 stars and the girl in reception is very nice and speaks really well English, Spanish and German. The services are great and the restaurant is in front of the private beach with amazing views and delicious food really cheap which we enjoyed a lot. One day we shared a mixed seafood platter with the typical Albanian rice for just 9 euros and another day we shared the typical sausages and rice for just 4 euros! We also enjoyed playing ping pong and Asha played and swim in the lake. We totally recommend it, with the Acsi card costing 17.50 euros per day, and if you stay 4 days, the 5th day is free!
The main attractions of Shkodër can be visited in just one day but I recommend you to visit the lake and its surroundings. To visit the town we parked behind the Sports Stadium (42.07093, 19.505642 lats, long) free and safe as the bar is just there, only 10 minutes walking to the city centre. We walked through a main street full of shops and people selling things in every place, as on the floor and on the top of the cars until we arrived at the Theatre Square.
Crossing the roundabout you find the Ebu Bekr Mosque for me the most beautiful thing in the city. Built in 1995 it has a capacity for 1,200 parishioners and two minarets over 40 meters high. The entrance is free.
The next thing we saw it was the Orthodox Cathedral of the Nativity completed in the year 2000, easily identifiable by its pastel tones, admission is free so we went inside to see it and we loved it because it is full of colour.
We walked through Kol Idromeno Street a central pedestrian street full of souvenir shops, terraces, bars and restaurants for all tastes. A super lively place.
Of course, the Catholics also have their churches and the most important of them is the Catholic Cathedral of St Stephen, dating from 1867 and after the damage suffered in the war against the Ottoman army in 1912-1913, it had to be restored.
We finished our visit having a coffee in the stadium bar where the waiter asked us if we want a small, normal or big size coffee, we told him the normal and he brought us a really small coffee, I wonder how was the small one! Each coffee is 50 cents.
Driving out of the city we saw the Rozafa Castle, a fortress that stands on a hill about 4 Km from the city centre. It was originally an Iryo stronghold until it was conquered by the Romans in AD 167. Its main buildings belong to the Medieval period around the 13th century.
And we went to Kusi Lake one of the most picturesque near Tirana, the capital of Albania which you can see in the next post.
