Today, to Shkodre: by minibus - the train runs there, as I saw, but when and how long it takes, I do not know.
There are checkpoints along the highway. And the roads? Mostly bad - some parts have been repaired, however they are few and far between.
The depressing, badly built communist buildings that make up most of the towns are lined with satellite dishes. Dishes and cell phones - connected to the outside world, but not connected to their front door. It sort of explains all of the garbage lying about.
Leche is halfway between Shkodre and Tirana - and it's not much to look at. There is, however a fort(or an old castle) on a hill, and it may interest those who are interested by such things. I should talk - I told my hotel folks I wanted to visit the castle in Shkodre, even though I couldn't give a damn about it. I just wanted to go to Northern Albania.




Shkodre is, well - another dirty and vast impersonal communist town trying to reinvent intself in the capitalist era. There is a main roundabout with a massive 'Heroism and Vigour' power to the people statue on it, and another striking mountain backdrop to save it from being completely ugly. Shkodra lake is right beside it, and most of it lies within Montenegro - er, I mean Yugoslavia.




The same guy who drove me here from Tirana offered his services as a taxi driver, and took me to and from the castle, better known as Rozafa Fortress. he also walked around with me through it.




The fort is reasonably boring, but the views are great. From a distance, at least, Albanian towns are scenic - you can blame this on the rooves of red clay shingles. Something else I noticed - not a single boat in the lake. Even though it is friday, in a rich country there are usually a few boats beside the crowded towns, especially on a large body of water. This may have something to do with lake Shkodre being divided between two countries. Or not.





It is apparently one hour to Podgorica in Montenegro from here, by taxi. Tempting. But this trip, while still about the Balkans, is still all about Albania.
I had lunch with the driver, and paid him about ten dollars for everything, which he seemed happy with, as was I. He introduced me to two of his friends at a cafe, filled with attractive Balkan women, and absolutely no one knew any english. His first friend was a cop, and his second language was Greek. Funnily enough, flipping through my guidebook, he kept saying "Boom, boom, boom," when he arrived at countries like Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. I thought, of course, that the people of those countries surely think the same thing of Albania. His second friend was a younger fellow, a student, and his other language was Italian. So far very few Albanians seem to know any English, which has made things relatively difficult for me; but not impossible. Perhaps in my recent travels I have relied too much on speaking english, anyways. Back to my other fluent language, which I picked up from the International School of Hand Gestures.




So back I went to Tirana, winding along the same road through the same dirty towns. At least it's warm. Tomorrow I head south, way south, with the goal of visiting Gjirokastra. Hopefully I will have enough time to get that far south, and still see something.

Durres



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