esmaspäev, 19. september 2022

Albanian Riviera. Are we still on the right track?

 













I went for a run in the morning. Since the beach is not very long and I don't particularly want to run where cars drive, the first part of the trail did not take me to a picturesque beach with turquoise water, but to the top of the hill behind the hotel. From there I ran back and along the other side on the beach to the next beach. In any case, my legs are not used to mountain running and I'm looking forward to see what they think about all this tomorrow.

After breakfast, we started our way to Albania. I had the map and Scott was driving. When we had driven for about half an hour on a road with the width of one car somewhere in the middle of bushes, Scott began to slightly doubt that we might be lost. But already an hour and a half later, the first 65 kilometers had been covered and the border crossed. On the Albanian side, the road also got a little wider. Soon we also reached the highway, where every now and then, in addition to usual 50 km/h, even 80 km/h was permitted.

Our first stop was the Duka Winery and Vineyard. We turned off of the highway into the fields and soon we were driving again on a one car wide or slightly narrower road between the fields. We drove until we reached Gramëz Bridge. Scott stopped the car in front of the bridge and tried to figure out if it was meant for cars and if our Opel could fit through there. I walked onto the bridge and decided that I didn't want to walk over all those flagging and sometimes missing slats. I got back in the car and started looking for an alternative route. At the same moment, a car came from the opposite direction and crossed the bridge - the bridge swayed and waved, but the car reached the other bank. We decided it was now or never and drove over. We only scratched the mirror.

The winery itself turned out to be an extremely popular place for Albanians, and we got the last free spot in the parking lot. We ordered spinach salad with fruit, meatballs, gnocchi with four cheeses and beef medallion with pistachios. And a bottle of wine, of course. Everything was fine until the moment the meat arrived on the table. I have never had just one piece of meat as a main course, without any side dishes. Sorry, there was also a plate full of nuts. It wasn't too much of an inconvenience because we still had some gnocchi left and that helped out. But how they managed to dry out the medium raw beef like that, I don't understand. Not a drop of liquid was left in it.

20 minutes after leaving the winery, we were at the hotel - some went to sleep (not me), some went to the beach. After we watched the sunset we went to eat. The stuffed portobellos were very good, they didn't have the smoked fish carpaccio (or rather, they did, but according to the waiter the fish was no longer in its prime), and the waiter replaced it with gravlax. The said salmon had probably enjoyed the Albanian sun for a few hours beforehand and had dried out properly at the edges. Instead of shrimp and avocado spring rolls, we were brought shrimp in phyllo dough and spring rolls with cabbage. Since this was not our vision of the spring rolls we wanted, we sent them back. To make up for this inconvenience, they brought us a tray full of fruit.

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