To our surprise, we actually woke up before our alarm went off, around 06:30.  We got ready for another travel day, albeit one within the same country for once.  We watched a video of Led Zeppelin performing Kashmir with the Egyptian orchestra, which was pretty cool.  We went downstairs a little early to settle our room bill (the drinks from dinner the first night and from the hotel bar last night).  We left the hotel around 08:00, and headed west towards Durres.  On the way out of town we saw a casino that looked completely built, but has never opened – it resembled something like Caesar’s Palace, but obviously much smaller.  There was no obvious transition from Tirana and Durres, as they sort of just blended from one into the other.  Durres is Albania’s second largest city, and its largest port.  Adrian told us there are plans to build a train line from the coast to the airport in Tirana, if nothing else to facilitate business and trade.  Durres was originally part of the Hellenistic Empire as a small coastal town, but grew rapidly during Illyrian times.  The Romans built up the area even further, as a crossroads.  It was along the road from Rome to Constantinople, and close to the narrowest sea passage from the Balkans to Italy.

Our first stop in Durres was at the Roman Amphitheatre, which was the largest Amphitheatre constructed in the Balkans, with a capacity of 20,000 people.  It was amazing to us that the Amphitheatre had been covered up, but apparently this occurred during the Ottoman period.  Adrian told us that there are plans to connect the Amphitheatre with the new Marina district nearby – it should look nice when it is completed.  Apparently a couple houses are going to need to be razed, and that is delaying the process.  Back when in use, nearby villas were connected to the Amphitheatre by a separate entrance, and those tunnels are still in pretty good shape.  We some old mosaics from when a Christian chapel was constructed at the Amphitheatre.  The place filled up shortly after we arrived, and we got out just in time.

We walked around the new promenade linking the Amphitheatre to the beach, and ended up at some fortress looking thing called the Venetian Tower.  We weren’t sure exactly what we were doing there, as we sat in some dark room for a bit, with incredible acoustics like at the Houston airport, where one side of the room could hear the exact conversation from the opposite side, as if sitting next to one another.  Eventually they brought out some VR headsets for people to try (Crystal checked it out, Justin did not).  Then they showed us some light show that was projected onto the roof of the room.  The show was geared more for kids, but whatever.  Then after the show, we went up to the roof terrace, and the view from up there was nice.

The beachfront promenade was just across the street, and we walked around there for maybe 10-15 minutes.  We would take Durres over Budva 10 times out of 10, and we didn’t dislike Budva – it’s just that if we wanted a less touristy coastal spot on the Adriatic, Durres seemed nicer, less crowded, and far less expensive.  And again, it should be even better by the time the Amphitheatre excavation project is complete.  Then again, it might be overcrowded and expensive by the time that is complete.  Consistent with elsewhere in Albania, there were all sorts of fancy Audis on the streets of Durres.  We left town around 11:00, after just a couple hours there, but hopefully we’ll be back in the not-too-distant future.

We headed south for a bit over an hour, seemingly to the middle of nowhere – driving past sheep and donkeys along the way – to arrive at Apollonia.  It was sunny when we arrived, but there was constant (literally constant) thunder in the distance.  The entire time we walked around we worried we were going to get poured on.  Appolonia started as an Ancient Greek trade colony, and later became an Illyrian and then Roman city.  Some of the ancient ruins, such as the Monument of Agonothetes, are in really good shape. 

After meandering around the ruins for a bit, we went into a museum next to the Saint Mary Church.  In the courtyard between the church and the museum, there was a couple taking wedding photos, and we all hoped they finished their photos before the inevitable storm started pouring down.  The museum was an unexpected treat, kind of like what we experienced in Trier a few years back, but on a much smaller scale.  Most of the old statues were missing their noses – the ones with noses looked 1000x better.  Outside we saw a marble well, and from rope having been pulled up thousands and thousands of times over the years, the rope had dug channels into the marble, such that the top of the well looked like some sort of metal coil.

To our surprise, we somehow got back to the van without it ever having rained on us.  Since Apollonia is in the middle of nowhere, we drove to a larger town, Fieri, for lunch.  We ate at a private dining room in the Hotel Fieri, a room that seemed like it would be used for conventions and the like.  We had two tables, and we were with Drago, Bill, and Adrian.  We talked about traveling to Greece, which is a common vacation spot for Albanians.

We had wi-fi, and Justin was finally able to show some of the other group members the clip from the movie Inside Man discussing Enver Hoxha.  Whenever we hear the word “Albanian” we think of that clip, and it was nice to show the other group members the video such that they didn’t think we were nuts.  [Well, maybe they still thought we were nuts.]  We could hear it start pouring whilst we were eating – finally the rain had arrived, and thankfully we were safely inside.  When we left lunch to go back to the van, the rain had largely dissipated, but there was water on the ground everywhere.  There was a lone dog sitting in the middle of a large square in front of an I ❤️ Fieri sign that caught our attention.

We departed at 14:45 towards Berat, to the east.  As we went further east we ascended into the hills and then mountains.  It took about an hour for us to get to Berat.  The Berat Castle is a UNESCO site, and we were surprised there were cars driving all around and through the Castle complex.  The walls were built over 2000 years ago, and burned down by the Romans in 200 BC, and then strengthened – ironically – by the Romans about 700 years later.  They were rebuilt again in the 6th Century, and one more time in the 13th Century. 

Adrian mentioned that the double-headed eagle on the Albanian flag originally came from Byzantium, and was passed down in various forms over the century.  We had a pretty good walk uphill to get into the Castle complex, as Drago’s van was too large to get in.  Once inside, we went to a church with a lot of icons, Cathedral of the Assumption of Saint Mary.  Adrian explained a bunch of stuff, but our ears kind of glazed over.  We did note the incredibly intricate carved wood everywhere, which was carved in 3D, with certain parts being essentially hollow, with carved portions in front and behind, and no glue anywhere.

From there we went to a viewpoint over the city.  There was a huge building that stood out like a sore thumb, vaguely like the White House, and someone jokingly asked Adrian “is that our hotel?”  Well, it turns out it was.  Apparently it was originally built for the University of Berat, but after the University shut down for issuing fake diplomas (Maybe 45 was in charge), it was transformed into a hotel in 2020, just in time for Covid.  The view of Berat and the surrounding valley was very picturesque.  Crystal noticed on the main pedestrian street in town, there appeared to be a bunch of classic cars parked together.  We decided we’d check that out once we got checked in at the hotel.

On the walk back towards the van we saw a couple and their dog taking in the views with a beverage or two, and it looked like they were all living their best lives.  Near the front gate we saw a horse just chilling – we wondered who had brought it up the hill.  It definitely had not been there when we arrived.  We took a short ride down the hill and around the Castle complex to the Xhamia Mbret Mosque (King Mosque).  It was built in the 1400s by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II.  The Mosque had some incredible ceilings, with lots of green and red geometric patterns.  In the same area there was a Caravanserai and also a dervish building called Halveti Tekke.  Inside Halveti Tekke, there were more intricately designed ceilings, as well as some very interesting glass windows.

When we got back into the van we said our goodbyes to Adrian, and then we took the short drive to our hotel (Hotel Colombo), arriving right at 18:00.  Our room was huge, and we were in Room 222 for the second time this trip (the first being in Belgrade).  It made us think of the De La Soul song “Ring Ring Ring” which has a lyric referencing a phone number 222-2222.  As soon as we dropped our stuff we headed out onto the main pedestrian street (Bulevardi Republika), and walked towards the classic cars.  We ran into Joyce and Andy and wondered how, in the middle of Albania, there was a 1950s era US border patrol vehicle. 

After checking out the vehicles we went into Bazar Bar, which we’d found doing some pre-trip research.  It had good reviews, and also took credit cards.  For the first round Justin got a Mai Tai and Crystal got a Hugo (Prosecco, gin, elderflower, and tonic).  For the second round Justin got an Enzo (secret recipe, but with maracuya), and Crystal got a Gin Ginmul (gin elderflower ginger cucumber lemon).  We were fans of the bathroom door, which had the emblem of a man and woman holding in the need to pee.  We chatted a bit with the proprietor, Enzo, and he was very happy that we liked the drink he’d come up with and named after himself.  We told him there was a good chance we’d be back after our group dinner.

Dinner was back at the hotel, and was enormous, with several courses.  First there was a chicken soup, then some borek, then some stuffed eggplant and stuffed peppers, then the main dish with chicken and veggies, and then cake.  While we were getting stuffed with food, there was an absolutely epic sunset going on outside, and we were lucky Justin had his camera on him.  Part of it was hidden to us behind the hill with Berat Castle, and it occurred to us that if that couple with the dog was still up at Berat Castle, they probably got the best view of anybody.

After dinner Crystal grabbed a go cup and went up to the room, and Justin and Peter went to Bazar Bar.  Justin got a Cuba Libre and then a Zombie.  He and Peter talked music, their favorite live performances they’d seen online (they had quite a bit of overlap), liver function and liver cell regeneration, and why interior wounds heal but peripheral wounds don’t.  They sat in the back corner, away from the smokers.  When Justin got back to the room, the windows were open, because Crystal hadn’t been able to get the AC to work.  We went to sleep around 23:00.