A return to the Albanian Rivièra

 Monday - Tuesday 25th - 26th Sept

Slowly we made headway through rain and traffic, towards a beach site that has good reviews and is conveniently on the way. The offline OsmAnd maps that we are using on the iPhone, are proving to work well but we are still learning the complexity. There’s loads going on inside the app and when we were directed off the main road, towards the blue part of the map, it looked OK but a few doubts crept in as we covered the 15km or so, as instructed. We went through a strange settlement and were clearly reaching the end of the road, when the road ended but not at the blue of the sea.

After turning around off a hardcore surface because it just stopped, we believed the map and drove onto a slightly sandy surface for the last km and into some pine covered dunes. Then there was the campground with a few others who were there before us.

It is really a beach shack that has camping and what turned out to be a good cook. As with everyone in Albania, when you say you are English, there’s a link to someone, somewhere. In this case the guy that greeted us, immediately said that he had worked in Billericay in a restaurant , for over four years, before coming back to help his parents here, at the beach café / restaurant.

We sampled their joint creation, as Father offered us a mix of fish for two because we couldn’t decide on which ones! It was a banquet. Really, you can’t beat ultra fresh fish. We couldn’t decide on the beer either,

The campsite fee was the usual €5 each and the ‘banquet’ was very reasonable too. It beats ‘wild camping’ to save the fee, which is what we have seen people doing. I think when you are charged €5 each to camp somewhere, then trying to avoid this is rather unfair. In Theth for example, there were several camper vans from Germany and Austria, who were on the outskirts of the village and saving that small fee. I think that is stealing stealing from the village.

We stood to admire a large MAN truck and the couple were planning to go to Saudi Arabia via Iran. Well Iran would be good (if I dare as a Brit) but Saudi? Really? I was immediately worried for the couple who I doubt have had a shakedown trip. This truck weighs over 8T and everything I have read says that less weight is better. How do you extricate an 8T truck from sand? Probably only with another one.

The beach season is definitely over here. it’s quite messy and a bit derelict and we are forming an opinion of Albania. I had a quick look at the toilet electrical distribution. I didn’t want a longer one. It didn’t help.

We moved on the next morning and decided to continue along the coast towards Himare where we have previously stayed and actually our mood improved as we got to the stunning coastline that we remember from our trip north in 2015.

Near the top of the crazy road that hugs the mountains, we stopped at an unconventional spot for lunch, a derelict concrete ‘thing’. The view was stupendous. Nearby were beehives and the guy who was there to tend to them, checked our UK plate and then scrolled through a few phone pics, showing us one of a young woman. His English extended to the words “daughter” and “Manchester”.

Then he showed another pic, this one was his car. Guess what, it has a UK plate!  Another piece of data for “The Investigation”.

A guy pulled in and got off his pushbike and we exchanged the time of day. He’s a Swiss called Adrian and is on a ride from his home in Lucerne to Greece. He has three months off work and wanted to ride to his fairly recently bought house in Greece because he wants to have the bike there. His wife had told him that he could take the bike on an aeroplane but he fancies the ride and is doing very well, despite not looking or dressing like a several week touring on a bike kind of guy.

I was interested to hear where he is going in Greece and when he said the Peloponnese I was even more interested to hear that he likes the Mani. In fact the house is there, at Stoupa. Exactly where? Neo Chori. Do you know it? Yes we know it, we first went to Stoupa twenty years ago and we will probably go there on this trip.

He was impressed. We took some selfies and then he made a proposal. Meet me at Patriko’s bar on 24th October at 6pm. We said that was the absolute latest we could expect to be there but, well maybe. So we shook hands all round and off he went, down the long hill to sea level.

It’s amazing what you learn by exchanging just a few worlds of greeting with a stranger.