Balkans                                          2016

Balkans 2016 Albania Kosovo Macedonia

Balkans - Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia - 2016

 

When I boarded my flight to leave Sydney (my home port) at the end of May, I had never been to Albania or Macedonia.  I had been able to get close - once - in 1987.  That was the year I did an exchange teaching post in the UK.  During the summer holiday, I travelled with my wife and (then) three young children through Europe.  We spent much of our time in Eastern Europe, then the “other” side of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, but wonderfully affordable compared with the capitalist West.

We managed to travel through several Eastern European countries, all under Communist rule with arduous border controls at that time — Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.  We never managed to get to Albania though; it was just SO isolated, TOO difficult to get visas and not very child-friendly.

Albania is (or was) famous for its isolation.  During the 1960s and 1970s, it was China’s only true friend — a comment on China at the time as well as a comment on Albania.  I remember reading Cultural Revolution magazines from China in the early 1970s declaring that (apart from Mao’s China, of course) Albania alone, under the “Brilliant Leadership” of Enver Hoxha, still held to the path of true Communism — which was apparently the system that the USSR and all its Eastern European satellites had abandoned.

For me, this only increased the allure of course, but despite my best efforts, a visit simply wasn’t possible in the divided Europe of 1987.  We got close when we drove through what was then southern Yugoslavia from Pristina to Budva, but Albania was always that mysterious, elusive land over on the other side of the mountains.

Times have certainly changed — although to be fair, we are talking about 29 years later and one Berlin Wall fewer here!  Now Australians do not even need a visa to get into Albania (or Kosovo or Macedonia for that matter, but more about them later in the trip diary).  Getting there is easier too, with multiple flights into Tirana (Albania’s capital) each day.  It was on one of these flights, in an Austrian Airlines Airbus A321, that we arrived early this afternoon.

Our flights from Sydney had taken a somewhat circuitous route.  I found a great deal on Austrian Airlines, which doesn’t fly into Australia, but works through its Star Alliance partners.  Our flight was originally on Air China to Beijing, where we were to connect to an Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna, which in turn would connect with a short Austrian Airlines flight connecting to Tirana.

We were advised a few months ago that Austrian Airlines had cancelled its flights to Beijing on the day we were flying, and we were to be re-routed with Air Canada instead.  And so we left Sydney on Sunday morning in an Air Canada Boeing 777 to Toronto, stopping for two hours in Vancouver for fuel and immigration formalities.  After another two hour stopover in Toronto for a change of planes, we boarded our Austrian Airlines Boeing 767 to Vienna.  This was a superb flight in every way; it’s not often that a flight can’t be faulted but that Austrian Airlines flight would have to come close.

We saw our first sunny weather since our take-off in Sydney as we approached our landing into Vienna.  Vienna was our entry point into Europe, a wonderfully efficient (and very secure) airport where we had our last stopover, four and a half hours this time, before boarding the plane for our final leg.

I was fortunate to have a window seat, and the aerial views of Albania were quite amazing.  We crossed into Albania over the steep, jagged mountains that had been the barrier to my entry in 1987 (the physical barrier, not the even bigger legal one). 

We emerged from the mountains over the small city of Shkodër, set in stunning scenery with the waters of Lake Shkodër on one side (forming the border between Albania and Montenegro), and the sandy bed of the braided River Kirit on the other, backed by the rising peaks of the North Albanian Alps. 

Our descent continued over some beautiful farmland, punctuated by the brutal intrusion of several parallel dolomite ridges.  As we circled to line up our landing into Tirana, it was very apparent that Albania is a land of steep hills and mountains, with picturesque villages in the foothills.  Our appetite for exploring this beautiful land was well and truly whetted.

With sunny skies persisting, our Austrian Airlines Airbus A321 arrived half an hour late into Tirana’s “Mother Teresa” Airport at 2:55 pm.  Our total travelling time from takeoff in Sydney until touchdown in Tirana was almost 37 hours - a long time to be sure, but to be fair, we had just circled more than half the globe.

As our plane approached its parking bay, it was apparent that something more than a normal welcome was underway.  The Albanian flag was flying, a team of six red coated army officers was standing to attention, armed with long swords, a black Mercedes-Benz limousine was in attendance, and a man was ready to run to the stairs of the plane to lay out a red carpet.  It turns out we were sharing our plane with the Albanian President, who was returning home.  And yes, as you would expect, the red carpet was rolled up again before any other passengers were allowed to disembark.

Resting was to be our main priority after arriving in Tirana.  I had arranged a hotel across the road from the airport, just a few minutes walk from the terminal.  First task, however, was getting some local money.  Fortunately, this was easy, with several ATMs in the airport terminal building.  Now I just need to work on my 89-times tables, as this is the number of Albanian Lek to one Australian dollar (at today’s exchange rate, anyway).

We checked into our hotel, the reasonably priced, two-year old Best Western Ark Hotel (with free wifi), and then went for a short walk to stretch our legs after the long series of flights.  Di’s main focus was getting some exercise; mine was to have a close look at the beautiful Antonov An-2 biplane that was parked next to the impressive new airport terminal.  Clearly, Albania had moved on from the days of Enver Hoxha.

It was great to be in the Balkans.

Day 1 - Arrival in Tirana, Albania

Monday 30 May 2016