#girokaster

[allthingseurope]

Girokaster, Albania

[livetrips]

La ville est entourée de montagnes ce qui rend les paysages relativement magnifiques.

[livetrips]

Aujourd'hui, il était temps pour nous de rejoindre notre 3ème étape avec la ville de Girokaster.

200km de bonheur avec un petit/gros bouchon au milieu pour finalement arriver à notre nouveau point de chute. Girokaster est réputée pour être la plus belle d'Albanie. Elle possède également une citadelle et une vieille ville. La citadelle expose fièrement un avion de l'US Air Force qui s'est posé en catastrophe dans les années 60. Il y a plusieurs versions de l'histoire concernant cette avion. La version des USA disait que le brouillard avait perdu le pilote et qu'il s'était posé en catastrophe alors que la version du régime communiste parlait de l'interception d'un avion espion.

Pour être honnête, la ville est jolie mais son seul intérêt comparé à Berat est la vue sur les montagnes.

[kurzzeitnomaden]

Heute waren wir #lieberkurzwegalsstaendigdaheim nach Besuch des #blueeye in #girokaster. Schönes #Fernweh Eure #kurzzeitnomaden

[buchout-blog]

Because there is no rain. #blackandwhitephotography #travel #albania #girokaster #sky #art (w: Gjirokastër Fortress)

[bikeybiketour]

We wish we had been diligent bloggers during this trip, not just to for our moms reading this, but but for ourselves! There were so many things to remember in every single moment of every single minute that it was impossible to write it all down AFTER a big ride. We were so tired. We were so SO tired.

We did manage to write down one of our favorite days that we’d like to remember forever:

We woke up in a dingy hotel— the grossest of our entire ride— in Fier, Albania. It was 20 bucks a night, and we only took it because we were desperate. We had ridden from Berat, a small town known for its thousands of windows, built along a river 400 years ago. We didn’t plan to stay in Berat either, but we arrived the night before and fell in love with its history, hillside villas, and castle on a hill. We found a guesthouse right on the river, with a yard full of grapevines among old bricks and old stories. After a night in the room next to the owner’s family and a full breakfast among the grapes and some playful kittens, we took off for Girokaster, a town that looked big on the weird map we bought in a gas station (We think it was printed at someone’s house in the 80s).

We made it halfway up and down and up and down some very dusty and rocky roads when we stopped for a cold drink at a tiny corner store. When looking at our map, as curious Albanians often did, the store owner told us in his own animated hand-signaling way that we MUST turn around. He said the roads ahead were impossible for bicycles and that we would never make it up the incredible rocky inclines.

We had taken so much advice over this trip from people who had never ridden bikes, and we often realized they’d tell us something was impossible without knowing the sheer strength of our monster legs. But soon everyone in town was standing around our maps and telling us in THEIR own animated ways not to forge ahead. So… we turned back. It was so painful to retrace our steps past the cows and the sheep up and down and up and down through and around miles and miles and almost back to where we started.

Which is how we ended up in Fier, a grimy industrial hub with nowhere to camp. So, we settled for the very bare $20 room with a blue light in the bathroom and a chest of broken drawers. It miiiiight have been a whorehouse. We left before we saw any whores, getting up bright and early to make one of our longest and most beautiful rides ever.

We made it to Albania’s newest highway, carved deep into the side of steep desert mountains dotted with green bushes and groups of sheep wearing tingling bells. We passed melon farms and peach orchards, old women selling figs and almonds from their own gardens. We climbed up in ninety degree heat, sweat rolling down our bare legs. Then we sped down, wind refreshing our dripping faces as we ripped past rivers and goats and a lone kiosk where a man sold Albania’s newest CDs.

We had an unspoken rule: always stop when there is a possibility to hug an animal. So our brakes skid when we passed an old man riding sideways on a donkey around his farm. We have no idea what he said, but he let us pet his donkeys (not a euphemism), talk to his donkeys, and ride his donkeys, whose ears were as soft as baby chicks.

As we traded our wheels for the steady legs of a strong burro, another bicyclist whirred past us. Our instinct was to yell because we hadn’t seen another cyclist for over a week and there is an unmistakeable camaraderie among those who are willing to wear their lives on racks for an extended period of time. She whizzed past us with a wink, but had a change of heart up the road and turned back.

“I couldn’t resist a donkey ride,” she said. She was Elaine from Ireland, and she had just come from the sketchy road the man had told us not to attempt. He’d been correct. Elaine, much more experienced than we were, couldn’t get past the insane inclines either. 

We bid farewell to our farmer and rode as a team up and away, the landscape changing from desert and farms to lush green as we rode higher and higher, looking down on lakes and forests, looking up to soaring peaks. We arrived in Tepelene, which looked like another small village until we noticed the crowd of cars stopping along the mountain. We stopped too because another unspoken rule was to do what the locals do. And we also stopped because we were going on 50 miles and were fairly tired. Ok, REALLY TIRED. The drivers were getting out, grabbing as many bottles as they could from their trunks, and filling them with the cool spring water splashing its way down the mountain. It was a spring! We rushed to fill our bottles, and drank the crispest, cooolest, tastiest water we’d ever swallowed.

After a few more hills and some more stopping to wave to sheep and to receive waves from passing cars (It’s like we were famous in Albania), we finally saw a sign for Girokaster, our destination! The old town is said to be the most preserved in Albania. The problem was it was high, high, high up. But we forged on. 60 miles in and we climbed what seemed like a 45 percent incline to a tiny wooded town barely balancing on a peak. We immediately fell in love with it. Unlike the Roman towns we’d seen with whitewashed bricks and bright lights, this was dark. Black cobblestones and black rooftops, tiny lanterns in small windows. Dark. Ominous. Yet filled with locals sharing coffees and milling along the main street. This wasn’t just for tourists. This was a slice of Albania new and old. We LOVED it. After sharing a dinner on the cobblestones themselves and trying every pastry in the bakery, we passed out in a luxurious hotel for $30 a night. This one was not a whorehouse. We dreamt of sheep, donkeys, cold water, and the next day’s journey across the border to Greece.

[pressuredspeech]

Gjirokastër, Albania

[senaykenfe]