TE Albania and Montenegro 2024
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We spent about five days in Corfu getting the boat ready and provisioned for the summer season. Clearing customs out of Greece turned into a major operation, but our agent handled it well. Our first stop leaving Greece was the port of Orikum in Albania, the countries only port with a marina. It’s a small marina and out of town. The agent there was a little more difficult, but we got it done.
Our first guest were Jess and Sam Osborne who we first met in the Northwest. They joined us in Orikum and helped with staightening out a number of boat issues, thank you again. Moving on we stopped at the dreaded Durres….we knew this from having visited on our road trip. Albania is filled with hopes and promises…and promises. The coast is really not hospitable to boaters as there are no island or coves, mostly an exposed rocking cliff coast.
On to Montenegro where we cleared in a Bar, again a confusing process the first time around. The city has a wonderful promenade the length of the beach with bars and cafes, much more relaxed than most Med beaches. The Orthodox church is magnificent…look at the pictures.
Next stop was Port Montenegro with its large, modern and efficient marina. Jess and I were able to get a couple of boat issues addressed and still had plenty of the time to enjoy the city of Trivet and its sister city of Kotor. After Jess and Sam left us, we rented a car and took a road trip thru Montenegro and Kosavo, both parts of the former Yugoslavia.
First stop was the charming ancient city of Budva with its fortress and fine waterfront promonade. From there we headed up into the mountains and stopped at Podgorica and then crossing the boarder into Kosavo we spent the night in Pec…not a place we would recommend. On to the capital, Pristina where we were welcomed with open arms as Americas. The US was the first country to recognize the newly independent Kosavo and Bill Clinton is regarded as their savior. The city has one of most interesting library building we have ever seen, we got only a limited view of the interior. Interesting conversations about Kosavo’s vs Albanian’s…Kosavo’s would say we do it and the Albanian’ dream about it.
We decided to go further up in the mountains and stubbled across the Grand Hotel Belushi..a brand new reproduction of a turn of the last center Grand Hotel. Turns out some brothers made money and decided to do this because they could. First hotel we have seen with a ‘salt cave’, and one of the most remote hotels of its size. Our last stop was the Ostrog Monetary that was dug into the side of a mountain. Marcia made the several mile hike up, Dan used the old man routine and managed a pass to drive up. The drive was then back through the mountains with a stop at the delightful city of Kotor.
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