Now I'm off to the Balkans!!! My start in Albania was a little shaky. First, at the border with Greece (in the middle of the nig...

Off to Albania!

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Now I'm off to the Balkans!!!

 My start in Albania was a little shaky. First, at the border with Greece (in the middle of the night) I gave my passport to an officer in the border and looked at my passport and he literally went like this: “El Salvador… HA! El Salvador… HA HA”… I just looked at him and said “Well, I guess you don’t get many El Salvadorian through here!” I was annoyed! What’s so funny? I think waking up for border crossings at 2am is not my thing!
Then we crossed over to Albania and handed my passport to the bus driver and 20 minutes later everybody had received their passport except me. After a little bit another officer came and asked for me and that I needed to get out of the bus since Ecuador needs a visa!!!! I was so confused because I knew I did not need a visa and I said I was NOT from Ecuador but he kept saying I needed a visa!
I got to the booth and the new officer told me the same, that my country needed a visa and I told him that I did not! The conversation went like this:
Officer: “You need a visa to enter Albania”
Me: “I do not, El Salvador does not need a visa to enter Albania”
Officer: “Do you have a US visa?”
Me: “No”
Officer: “Do you have a UK visa or Shenghen?”
Me: “I am visa free in UK and Shenghen”
Officer: “Are you sure you don’t need a visa?”
Me: “Yes, I’m sure!”
Officer: “Are you sure?”
Me: “Yes”
Officer: “ ARE… YOU… SURE?”
Me: “YES!”
And showed him 3 different sites that said I did not while he pointed at his phone and said that I did… Finally I think he figured out that he was dumb and doesn’t know how to read El Salvador and Ecuador! So at the end he looked at me, wrote my info on the computer and said “Welcome to Albania” and let me go… 


Second, I got the night bus and the guy said I was going to get there at 5am and just had to wait until 6am to get the bus to the hostel so I thought that was doable BUT I arrived at 3am! I did not have a hostel and couldn’t show up at 3am so I decided to lay down on the couch at the 24hour cafe at the bus station. I immediately fell asleep and woke up sneezing at 6am. I opened my eyes and cafe was covered in smoke from all the guys smoking inside so I decided to leave. I did not know where to go and tried to ask but absolutely no one spoke english so I decided to go to the gas station where the guy spoke perfect Spanish and told me how to get to the old town.

At 7am I rang the bell of Stone City hostel and was greeted by the owner, Walter, and entered the most charming and nice hostel I have ever stayed at. The morning started with an awesome breakfast in the communal kitchen meeting all the guests at the hostel.



The amazing breakfast

View from my bunk bed!


The first thing I did in Gjirokaster was to hike over to an old bridge and for some great views of the Gorge and the green scenery around the town.
Walter gave me great directions on how to get to the bridge!


Got to the bridge


On my way down from the hike I visited the castle along with its museums.

Castle up on top



One of the museums is a former prison.




The museum (100% in Albanian) displayed all kinds of weapons


View from the prison



Castle walls and the amazing view of the hills.

One afternoon Walter took a group of us for a city walk and explained some of the history of Albania. My favorite part of the city was walking through one of the many hidden bunkers around town. 


During my two days in Gjirokaster I really enjoyed walking through the streets and taking pictures of the many stone roofed houses, nice looking doors, and beautiful scenery.

The stones on the roof are not secure and are put together using a balancing technique, meaning that it is very likely that if one gets loose all of them will fall down. Especially dangerous during the rainy season!






A beautiful wooden gate :)

A really pretty wild flower
 I loved looking at all the laundry hanging in people's houses, interestingly enough they only dry shirts and pants! I have yet to see underwear hanging for the whole town to see!









Plant pots everywhere!


As I walked the town I noticed that many of the backyards had grape vines growing and apparently during grape season the town looks beautiful with the grapes hanging down.




Apparently frescos were a big thing in Gjirokaster long time ago but then the white house craze came by and people started putting white paint over the frescos but this is the one house that still displays some of it:



Here's a funny story... during war time there were cutlery factories around Gjirokaster and people started making fences with the scratch metal sheets so now you walk around town and instead of chicken wire you can see spoon, knives, and fork shapes on everybody's property. 


Mix of Knife and spoon fencing!

The typical look of a Gjirokaster House.





The food in Gjirokaster was also amazing, both night I went out with people from the hostel and had some amazing meals! Albania is so cheap!!! I want to stay here forever!!!
Grilled veggies

Stuffed peppers

My favorite! Fried cheese with sesame seeds and honey! Yumm!
Now off to my next city... Berat!






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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com