Vlorë Wander and Beach Time

I’ll count today as a sleep-in. Sarah would probably disagree! 😂 When I woke up and checked the time on my phone, it started with a 6 — but was dangerously close to ticking over to a 7! A bit of catch-up sleep after yesterday’s early chaos.

Our plan was to head into town on foot early to beat the heat. We were a little later than ideal, but we definitely needed the extra ZZZs. It was already 26°C when we set off. Thankfully, the tall apartment blocks lining the beachfront meant we were mostly walking in the shade — much appreciated! Below is the new apartments they are building next door to us. See if you can spot the guy working up on the 8th floor. No expensive construction scaffolding required here. 

We retraced our bus ride from yesterday, about 2km, and then added another kilometre on foot. We didn’t quite make it to the main city sights or the bus station as we’d hoped — we’ll tackle those tomorrow with the assistance of a bus. But we did reach a larger supermarket and scoped it out for a restock run. After that, it was the bus back to our beach.

A quick rest in the apartment and it was time to hit the beach for a swim. The beach here is sandy, lined with umbrellas and loungers for rent — it's too hot to be lying under those today. We found a spot in the free zone to drop our sandals and shirts. The water is incredibly shallow for ages — you walk out around 60 metres and it’s still only knee-deep! We ended up swimming (floating) about 100 metres from shore in 1.5-metre-deep water. If you want it deeper, you basically need to start swimming toward Italy!

One downside: the beach has quite a bit of rubbish scattered about. It’s a real shame. The city doesn’t seem to employ anyone to clean it, and unfortunately, not everyone treats the area with care. There’s quite a bit of plastic and general litter on the sand — though thankfully, the water was clear. Albania reminds us a little of Thailand — warm and beautiful in parts, but a bit rough around the edges. You can’t drink the tap water here either — bottled only, like in Thailand. And yet, I’d jump at the chance to visit Thailand again and again. Albania? I’m not so sure... 🤔

After lunch, I took a quick siesta, then got back into my book — which is finally getting to the good bits!

Now, I was going to tell you what we had for dinner… but I’ve been banned! ☹️ Sarah proofreads this blog, so there’s no chance I can sneak it past her. I’ll just say it was tasty — though we probably should have added some greens. We considered buying lettuce yesterday, but they only came in pairs — literally joined together with a car key style ring! Odd. We didn’t think we’d get through both, and didn’t want to waste one.

Not many photos today, sorry! Here's one of our apartment block to pad things out a bit.

Here's another that interested me as it reminds me of New Zealand in the 1970s. Yeah the heat might have effected my brain. 😂

After dinner Sarah asked if I would like a coffee. I suggested we could have one on the beachfront and watch the sunset with a coffee. After a short look around we found a place that served coffee and desserts! 😋