quintesentially Albanian: started a business, the same business as everybody else, because they were successful, but now too much competition, and thus the business folded. The number of failed service stations…..
We leave Tirana in the pouring rain, on our way to Montenegro. Somehow, we miss the connection to the motorway, and for an hour, or so, we drive the old road to Shkoder, in the north of Albania. And suddenly the Albania of the past is back again. Here no new developments, no fancy buildings, just the old houses like they were thirty years ago, with the metal doors closing off the small yard inside, and for the rest countryside. And poverty. The weather doesn’t help, of course.
outside Tirana, outside the motorway, the roads are still pretty much as they used to be, or a little worse
the countryside, not very different from 30 years ago
The plan to visit Shkoder is abandoned; it still rains ferociously. We have a coffee at the edge of the Buna River, the one that connects the vast Lake Shkodra with the sea, and forms from here the border with Montenegro. And then we drive on to Montenegro, with visions of the past: along a part of the road the old bunkers are still preserved, in some cases people have just confiscated the land and built their fences around them, without bothering to remove them.
The Border
The border takes time, waiting, but no effort. They are obviously used to foreigners from further away, and we are insignificant, compared to the string of German and Dutch campervans that cross into, and out of Albania using this road. And on the other side? Completely different, far more developed than the sorry state we saw on the Albania side, here are modern villas, fairly new and well-maintained houses, an excellent road.
A little later we arrive in Ulcinj, the first town of the Montenegrin coast.
bunkers confiscated by extending your fence around them, why not?
bunkers along the road to Montenegro
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