Moving Day - Kotor to Shkoder, Albania

It's another early start for the Kiwi Flashpackers. We need to be in Kotor for the 8:00 am bus departure, which means catching the 6:30 am bus from Orahovac. A quick breakfast and tidy-up. The quick pace wasn’t helped by me knocking a glass onto the floor, smashing it. Not a great start. 😡

But things improved—both buses were running to schedule, and at 8:00 am sharp, we were off, heading to Shkodër, Albania. A new city and a new country!

Never heard of Shkodër? You're not alone—we hadn’t either. It's a small city on the edge of Lake Shkodra (or Skadar, as it's known in Montenegro).

So why are we going there? 🤔

To see a bridge! No not this time. To see an old castle ruin, and hopefully the lake, and because it’s a convenient place just across the border to break up the trip into Albania. The bus ride is expected to take 3 hours and 10 minutes, plus any waiting time at the border.

Heading out of Kotor, we are immediately slowed down by roadworks. They're building a new four-lane highway to Budva, but the state of construction suggests it won’t be opening any time soon. We reach Budva, which is much larger than Kotor and more densely developed—lots of high-rise apartment blocks beside a beautiful beach and seafront. It’s known for being very touristy and busy, which is why we chose to visit Kotor instead.

From Budva, the bus climbs a very large hill that reminds us of Takaka Hill back home in Tasman, New Zealand. The road here is wider and better maintained, and the hill is smaller, but the distinctive karst limestone rocks lining the roadside are almost identical. There’s a large limestone cave nearby too.

The roads in general are pretty good, and the bus ride is fairly comfortable. The best part? Working air-conditioning and a half-full bus. It’s a direct route with only one stop—at the border.

The border crossing doesn’t have a separate lane for buses, just two lanes going our way, so we have to line up with the cars. Total crossing time for both out and in passport checks was only 45 minutes, which is pretty good. What wasn’t good: no passport stamps on either side. ☹️

At the border stop, we get our first look at Lake Shkodra, and shortly afterward we’re in the Albanian countryside. For some reason, I’d been expecting burnt-out cars and dilapidated houses—but actually, the homes near the main road are surprisingly flash. Plenty of new builds on decent-sized plots of land. We also pass some very fancy resort hotels, a few vineyards, and fruit groves. The ground looks super dry here.

We pull into central Shkodër at 12:00 pm, right on time once you factor in the border delay. We message our apartment host via Booking.com, and she replies that we can check in straight away—no need to wait until 2:00 pm. She just needs 10 minutes to check the place and pick up some water for us.

There’s a city park right next to the apartment complex where we think the building is located. We say “think” because although the apartment is marked on the Booking.com map, it doesn’t have a number or a specific street address. We find a shady spot in the park to wait. Nearby, there are four or five groups of elderly men sitting at tables playing a game—four players per table. The pieces look like brass dominoes, and everyone seems to be having a good time, although there’s also a bit of middle-finger waving at one table. 😂

We get another message from Elda, the host, and start wandering the side street looking for where she might be. A woman soon calls out from two stories up. She’s with her daughter Mishel (it’s school holidays). The apartment is named after Mishel.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it’s very modern and comfortable inside. It’s right in the city center and will suit us perfectly. It's only costing us €38 per night, NZD $74!!!

The arrow is pointing at our window below. Above is the entrance we had to find. The internet spaghetti wires are just like Thailand and Cambodia! 😂

We drop our bags, get the air-conditioning going, and then search Google for a nearby bakery. There’s one very close by, and they have lovely fresh loaves of bread, which they slice for us (bonus!). We also try a pastry filled with yogurt. Total cost for a large sourdough loaf and the pastry is 220 lek (ALL).

Albania uses its own currency, but it's fairly easy to convert:

1 NZD ≈ 50 ALL

OR divide lek by 100 to get euros, then double that to get an approximate NZD value

They also accept euros, but not large notes, so we’ll need to withdraw some lek soon. For lunch, Sarah happened to have exactly €2.20, which was handy.

We went to the recommended nearby supermarket "Conad", but it was a bit of a dud. So we walked in the opposite direction and found a Spar, it had the basics for breakfast and lunch. Still not great, so we may look for another store tomorrow. First impression: groceries seem to be more expensive here than expected. We used a 50 Euro note so we could get change in lek. 

We’re planning to eat out tonight, so we’ll worry about more shopping later.

Weird discovery of the day:

Our European plug adapters don’t fit most of the sockets in the apartment. I tried two or three and it’s as if they’re blocked. One socket by the electric jug worked fine, and another random one worked once—then stopped when I removed and reinserted the adapter. What!? Out of a dozen sockets, only two seem usable. 🤔

We went out for dinner across the park to a nearby Italian restaurant. There was only one other person in the restaurant. We might be on the early side at 6pm. The waiter said most people don't come in until about 7.30pm. We don't mind. 😂 

We had a pizza, carbonara pasta, fries, and coke zero and a small local beer called Korca. Total cost: 1,800 lek (around NZ$36). It was all very tasty other than the fries. The beer was a basic bland lager but nice; easy drinking.😉 The cost was reasonable, though a bit of a splurge for our travel budget. We’re keen to eat out again another night and try traditional Albanian cuisine, but tonight, Italian suited us just fine.

After dinner, we took a stroll through the main pedestrian restaurant and bar area one street over from our park restaurant. A very busy area with many people walking and sitting down to dinner. No vehicle access, beautifully colored buildings, and a well-kept area. Is this all show for the tourists? We’ll find out tomorrow when we venture further afield.

There is a mix of both Christian and Muslim churches in the inner City from what we have seen so far. As the sun sets we can hear the call to prayer in the distance mixed in with the sound of children playing in the streets outside. The city has a friendly and pleasant vibe so far.