June 26 – 27, 2013

Distance: 46.8 miles   Climbing: 2437.7 ft

We woke up to a beautiful morning and were very excited knowing that we would not have to go far to find coffee. The cafe owner was playing with her grandchild when we got up to the restaurant and her daughter brought us delicious espressos immediately. We lingered over our cups while watching the sun rise and trying to coax Bianca, the granddaughter, to smile at us. Soon, it was time to say goodbye and the owner refused our money, just wishing us well and making sure our water bottles were full. We are continually surprised at the generosity of strangers.

Too shy to say goodbye

The riding started out with gradual hill climbing as we followed the road along the river gorge. We were treated to really stunning views of the river, small farmhouses and vineyards way down below on the shore. We marveled at how lucky we felt to be in such a wonderful place. After a little while we came to a bottleneck in the gorge. Chandler was happy to find out we had been riding along a reservoir, which led to a dam. Next to the dam was a tunnel through the mountain. We don’t like tunnels, and this one wasn’t lit as usual.

View from the climb

Surprise! A dam!

After the excitement of what turned out to be a short tunnel, we were funneled onto a major highway. We attempted to stay on the old road, but it promptly led us to someone’s house before ending at a cliff over the new road. We looked at the map and realized we would only have to be on the highway for a short while, so we turned around. We were actually very pleasantly surprised to find the new highway had a huge 5 foot shoulder on our side (curiously no shoulder on the other side, so we got lucky) and very little traffic. We made really good time with a tailwind, flying along the pavement before having to exit at the town of Milot. The road condition deteriorated but we didn’t notice too much because we ran into some other cycle tourists. They were two boys from Denmark cycling to Macedonia during their break from University. We talked routes and exchanged amusing antidotes from the road. The boys also suggested a slow food restaurant in the town of Fishta.

The rest of ride was along rolling hills weaving through small villages, which we didn’t pay much attention to because we stent the whole time keeping an eye open for the restaurant. When we reached Fishta, the restaurant was obvious because it was nice. A lot nicer than what we were dressed for in our sweaty bike attire. The owner immediately offered us seats outside and explained the system. The menu was in Albanian, which we don’t speak, so he asked how much we want to spend, per person, and he would arrange something nice. We decided on 10 Euros each and explained I am a vegetarian. We were then presented with the most incredibly, amazingly delicious feast!

Best restaurant in Albania

Chandler is ready to eat

Our meal included wine and beer and an assortment of cheeses, olives and breads as an appetizer. We were then given various steamed or breaded vegetables with more cheeses and homemade sugar syrup made from pine cones packed with sugar in jars left in the sun. Next came the main course of pasta with a mushroom sauce for me and leg of baby goat for Chandler, with a side of roasted potatoes to share. Dessert was fresh fruit and coffee. We spent about three hours enjoying the food and were contemplating camping on the lawn so we could do it again the next day.

A little something to get us started

Ready to burst

Feeling extremely full and happy, we waddled back onto the bike in search of a hotel. As luck would have it, we encountered a fierce headwind, which cut our speed down by half. Normally, I would be cursing the wind, but I actually appreciated the extra effort to help work off the meal. When we reached the town of Mjede, we decided to call it a night instead of continuing to struggle another 10 miles. The hotel had reliable wifi, so a rest day was in order for the next day. Plus, we were avoiding leaving Albania and wanted to stick around one more night!

June 25, 2013

Distance: 37.2 miles        Climbing: 2424.5 ft

We walked around Bulqize in the morning looking for breakfast and Ellet, but found neither. We still haven’t figured out breakfast here. There are tons of cafés, but they only serve drinks, and we never see anyone eating anything in the morning. In the larger towns we can usually find a bakery selling pastries, but there wasn’t an obvious one here. Chandler settled for a chicken gyro since he was starving. I was able to find some bananas, which at least gave me some fuel.

We got back on the highway and rode up a steep but short pass on the west side of town. On the other side we found a very long winding descent. We had a perfect view of the valley below, full of fields with limestone mountains in the distance. We made our way down into the valley to the town of Klos. We saw on our map that there was a rail line starting near there, so we thought about catching the train to change things up a little bit. The streets in the town were under construction and in a chaotic torn up state. It was quickly apparent that we were not going to be taking the train when we saw that the railroad ballast was excavated in some areas, maybe borrowed to help rebuild the roads? The rail bridges were all still intact but the rails themselves were gone. We rolled along through a valley full of family farms, with lots of people waving to us as we passed.

Good spot to pose for a photo

Down into the valley we go

We stopped at a gas station for some espresso and one of the guys sitting in the café spoke some English so we found out that the vote counting was still going on and there wasn’t a winner in the national election yet.  Back on the bikes, we rode along through the valley until we made it to the outskirts of Burrel, which we quickly found out was up on top of a big hill. Our map showed two roads going in our direction, one up through Burrel, the other almost straight north. The north route looked shorter and we almost took it when we saw that the map had the road going straight through a large reservoir. We double checked on the GPS and saw the road dead ended at the reservoir, and now another road made a circuitous route around the east side, and up some big hills. So we climbed to Burrel. It wasn’t anything amazing, and we didn’t see a place to stop for pizza, plus it was just packed with people milling around in front of local national party headquarters. The whole place felt a little tense so we kept moving, back down the big hill on the other side of town.

Not the flag we were expecting to see

Looks a little too big to jump off

We rode along a ridge overlooking the south side of the reservoir and then made a big climb before descending into a river valley below the dam, which was out of sight from the road. After crossing a huge stone bridge we started chugging up the road perched up on side of the river valley. We saw a little café and stopped for a cold drink and a snack. There was a nice older lady running the place and she made sure we sat on the side of the deck with a gorgeous view overlooking the river. It was a really nice spot with a vineyard planted on the steep bank between the café/house and the river. After relaxing for a while we realized we were pretty beat and asked if we could camp for the night down below. The old lady seemed like she expected this and motioned that we should go down and stay in one of the small wooden sun shelters by the river. She handed us a big bottle of frozen water and we brought a couple of beers down with us too.

Chandler relaxing

Free campsite

We cooked dinner and then the women’s two sons came down to do some fishing. They went out on the river in a rowboat and set a long line of baited hooks for quite a way downstream. They came back to shore to wait and they showed Chandler all the fruits that they grew, and they talked about fishing by waving their hands around. As it got dark we said goodnight and went to sleep.