Appolonia and on to Greece

As I was checking out of the hotel this morning, the concierge asked me what I thought of the Albanian ladies. I said, I hadn't seen many…..seems to be mostly guys hanging round at the cafes. Next thing he says "would I like to 'see' one"….at 11am in the morning! Declining politely, I went off to see the ruins of Appolonia (or should I say one of the Appolonias….there were quite a few of them) It was occupied for nearly 1000 years but then was killed off when an earthquake diverted the course of the river supplying it and it's harbour silted up. Most of the site has not been excavated and the signature piece you can see in this pic seems to be mostly concrete and rebar…. Still, the local guide I was talking to is very proud of it. The Parthenon it is not.

More bunkers in fields today, and this one is for sale. Some enterprising chap has converted the thing into a little house and built an extension. I wandered south to the town of Vlora over crumbing roads and shook my self to bits in the process. There seems to be a building boom in Vlora, with new large apartment blocks overlooking the beaches. Some rumours of Mafia money financing it but who knows.



Took the coast road south towards Greece and was rewarded with 100km of really fun riding with some genuine jeopardy thrown in to keep your attention up. The area is spectacular and there are views everywhere you look.

The road is mostly fine except for occasional howlers. The usual suspects, animals, rubble from landslips and just plain craters in the road. I went past one particularly steep section where a bus had gone through the barrier last week killing 14 students. Very sobering.

I don't have a GPS map for Albania and the paper ones that are available are rubbish. Wandering round the last town on the section trying to find a road sign indicating which way to the greek border, I bumped into three German bikers and decided to follow them. Two were on Triumph Tigers and on on a Triumph Rocket and 2300cc monster of a bike. But it sounds GOOD! ….and he had to ride it through this lot. This is one bike which is definitely not designed for playing off road.

We wandered on, crossing a river by a cable drawn barge and eventually settled for a bite to eat in Greece before the guys took a ferry to Ancona tonight. Over dinner, they told me that they had followed a route marked on a local map yesterday and there was no surface for 55km….how the Rocket survived, I don't know.