Bike ride into the Albanian borderlands

Part 2 of my bike ride across Albania picks up in Përmet, as we cycle to Gjirokastër, down to Butrint, up through Sarandë, and along the Riviera to Himarë.

On the road, I pass Cold War bunkers and the hilltop fortress that once watched a closed frontier. I visit the birthplace of Enver Hoxha, explore Venetian and Ottoman ruins and end the 6-day ride on an Albanian beach.

Do the tour yourself: https://www.headwater.com/holidays/cycling/albania/C07AB.htm

In this video, I e-bike along Albania’s former Iron Curtain. During the reign of communist dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania was the most isolated country in Europe. You couldn’t freely leave or enter Albania.

Hoxha’s communist regime built hundreds of thousands of bunkers across Albania, fortifying the borders with Greece and Yugoslavia. I traced the route of this Iron Curtain from Pogradec, on the Lake Ohrid’s shores, south to the Greek border, visiting Korce and Lake Shelegur on the way.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week, where I cycle from Permet to Himare, on the Albanian Riviera.

Headwater Active Holidays: https://www.headwater.com/holidays/cycling/albania/C07AB.htm

Thanks to Holiday Extras for providing Airport Parking at Luton Airport: https://www.holidayextras.com/

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I’m on a quest to explore the world through its borders and boundaries.

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[Music] Good morning from Albania. Day four of the ebike ride is well underway. Uh this is more of a rest day today. We’ve just left Per behind us. We got about 37 km to go. And now our target for the day is a place called Gyrocasta uh which is UNESCO World Heritage site in Ottoman town. But it’s also important because that’s where Emah Hawker, the uh Albanian communist dictator was born. Um and then in Per where we were just from, that’s where he sort of uh cemented his rule with the Congress of Perat in 1944, which essentially put the communists into power after the Second World War. These bunkers are still everywhere. This uh restaurant/cafe has a bunker built into its courtyard or the restaurant built around the bunker. Want to go get a coffee in a bunker? Safest place to have a coffee. Safest place to have a coffee. In the event of nuclear fallout or a Yugoslavian invasion, there’s literally just a bunker on the side of the road that they seem to have turned into a little museum. Cool. So, yeah, Hawks have built or ordered the building of hundreds of thousands of these and now they’re just a part of everyday Albanian life. I suppose they turned this one into a It wasn’t a cafe. It was a cheese shop actually where you can buy fresh cheese, honey, rakia, wine. Yeah, the bunket is also a cheese shop. Check it out. Homemade wine. Raki and lots and lots of cheese. Plum juices get a rose. All right. So, we’re just further along the Vossa River. We just crossed over to the other bank because check out this view. Blow it. This is the dodgiest iron bridge ever. Probably built during the communist era. But, uh, this view is just absolutely incredible. one of Europe’s only remaining wild rivers. All right, we’re just carrying off across the bridge again and we’re being held up by this uh big herd of goats coming down the main road. So many goats. [Music] [Music] They absolutely reek some of goat cheese. [Music] go. Back on the road. Oh, look at this fell. Looks like he could eat you alive. All right, we have made it to Gyracasta. End of our fourth day of cycling. First stop is bor. Beautiful. What have we got? We’ve got corn and spinach. And what else did we get? Cottage cheese, bro. Cottage cheese. Look at that. Traditional Albanian pie. €2 for hefty slab of it. So this is Gyrocasta. Byzantines founded this uh around the 12th 13th century. Then the Ottomans came in, took over the place. And when we walk through the old bazaar in a second, you’ll see all the kind of Ottoman style Turkish streets. And then from there, we’re going to head up to the fortress. But on the way, we’re going to check out some old Cold War tunnels built, of course, by Mr. Ember Hawker, the Albanian dictator who was born in Jarcasta. City was built around this fortress here, which was the one built by the Byzantines to hold this strategic valley uh in Albania. So, these are the old town bizarre streets. And compared to everywhere else we’ve been on this bike ride, this place is proper touristy. This is where the uh tourism scene in Albania begins really. So, you can buy all these uh what looks like World War II helmets. Buy all this World War II uh memorabilia by the looks of it. Communist torches, belts, ammunition cartridges, and this is the nostalgia tunnel over here. Should we go in the nostalgia tunnel? This is the man himself, Ember Hawker, the dictator of Albania. So he was dictator from 1944 until 1984. What happened in ‘ 84? He died. What happened then? Someone else took over and then the whole regime collapsed in 19 1990s I think. And then what happened? And then Albania went to basically for a couple of years. Yeah. That was that. Right. We’re going to check out the nostalgia tunnel 100 le entry. All right. Here we go. Kev one and two guns. Oh, badges for So, she said the tunnel stretches for 73 m beneath the castle and they just filled it with all sorts of what looks like communist uh era memorabilia revolution. So, comrade Kev. Comrade Kevin. Albanian World War I and World War II helmets. Gas mask military water bottles. Just like household household detritus, isn’t it? And espresso for you, sir. Oh, got raky glasses as well. You go communist bowls. I don’t know what makes a communist bowl different from a normal bowl. Oh, here’s your dinosaur, mate. Communist dinosaur. Albanian dinosaurs. Iron pot. These are just pots and pans from people’s kitchen, aren’t they? You got your tefl plastics in these bad boys. Communist tea. I think this is one of Emox’s propaganda signs. I don’t know what that means. Something about revolutionaries. Looks like some communist magazines as well. Oh, we’ve reached the end. Well, you can watch a video about Albanian history. Albania was virtually cut off from the rest of the world. There we go. That is the nostalgia tunnel. I’m presumably presumably this was built as part of the massive fortifications and underground bunkers and tunnels and yet another cold war tunnel here getting built under the castle. See where it ends up sounds. [Music] So this tunnel goes right under the castle. I think during Hawk’s regime, they built hundreds of probably thousands of miles of tunnels across Albania underneath all the cities to defend against attacks that basically never came from Yugoslavia, Western countries. Yeah, I think we’ve come out on the other side of the castle. Nice view, mate. Beautiful. Now we’re going to head up these uh little paths and see if we can get to the top of the castle. All right, so we’ve come a little bit off pie the side of the castle and we’re hoping we can get in this way, but if not, we’re going to have to head back down and go through the tunnel again and find the real entrance. I think this is a dead end. Oh yeah, that’s padlocked. Yeah, we definitely can’t get in that way. All right, the gate’s definitely locked to the side. So, we just go back under through the Cold War tunnel and then find the actual entrance to get inside. We get up there. I reckon we go up here. Sure. I’m not sure, but let’s try it. Can buy Joseph Stalin’s autobiography. I don’t know. Stalin the rats and Ember Hawk’s books as well. He wrote a book. He wrote like 12 books. Yeah, that’s like part eight. There’s a plaque outside the castle which is a memorial in memory of the anti-communist martyrs that were arrested, punished, tortured, executed, died of torture and disappeared at the prison of Jiracasta Castle, one of the most notorious prisons of communist dictatorships. So during Hawk’s regime, this whole castle was apparently used as a political prison for anti-communists. So we’re going to head in and uh see what there is left today. Kev All right. So, we made it into the castle. Scraped together some euros and some less 400 each. And first thing we find is the gate where we were locked out on the other side. There’s some poor souls climbing their way up as well. A deja vu, isn’t it, Kev? Right. So, we’ve come out on the rooftop of what looks like it was a prison which was built by King Zog, the last king of Albania, and then used by Enhawk during the communist regime to hold political prisoners. But we’re just saying this museum is uh kind of a bit of to be honest. Um there’s like no signage. There’s nothing telling you what’s actually happening once you’re through and you paid your entrance fee. So, I’m sure there’s a whole lot of history here that were missing. There was a interesting there was a tomb a beectachi tomb. The bectachis were a kind of unusual Ottoman religious order which was popular with the janiseries too. Stop walking come right to the edge. As if there’s no signage. Yeah. Yeah. As I was saying, the Btashis were a kind of religious order originated in Anatolia amongst the the Ottoman soldiers, the janiseries and spread. It became very popular in Albania um until it was outlawed during the communist era. But interestingly that it’s the first pectachi tomb I’ve seen, which you can actually see down here and that’s where we came from. The Albanian government has agreed to create a sovereign lecti nation similar to the Vatican city in Rome. So this religious order will have their own sort of mini sovereign state in the capital in Toronto. So yeah, it’s the first time I’ve encountered the Bachis, but they could be the next official UN recognized country if the plan goes ahead. Although I think there’s a lot of resistance to giving up Albanian sovereignty to a religious order. So this is the great gallery. This is where all the ar This is where all the armaments were kept and but now it’s kind of a museum to all the different uh all the different military memorabilia that’s been collected. We just come on top of the ramparts and there’s an American spy plane on the rooftop. Apparently, this crashed or this was forced to landed in 1957 at a nearby airport. Um, the Americans said it was a sort of training flight that went wrong and the pilot had to do an emergency landing in Albania. The Albanians said they forced it to land, but it was a spy plane, but it’s been here ever since. Yet another piece of the Albanian Cold War mystery. So, that is it from Gyracast, guys. I’m going to call it a day now. Long day cycling and then a long day walking around the old town. Uh but tomorrow we’re going to continue the journey on the ebikes heading across to the Albanian Riviera to the south coast. We got a long over 70 km ride to make but we should end in Sar. All right, good morning from day five of our ebike ride across southern Albania. So we just took a little transfer, we cheated a bit from Jiracasta to the top of the Muzin Pass. From here we’ve got a 70 km ride down to the Albanian Riviera. So the route today will take us down through the pass itself and then we’ll emerge in Brant National Park where it looks like there’s a lot of Ottoman Byzantine and even a few Venetian ruins for us to explore. So this is where we got dropped off uh the top of the the pass by this petrol station. But it looks like we’re going to be sharing the roads today with a little bit of the Albanian wildlife. Couple of horses making their way up the path from the way that we’re about to head down. A couple of horses. A lot of horses. Oh, heard of horses. I can’t see any horse shepherds or whatever you call them. Farmers. Bloody hell. All right. Something spooked that horse. So far on this trip, we’ve been attacked by an Ayan sheep dog. We’ve had to navigate herds of sheep and goat. I was also attacked, almost attacked by a snake at the swimming hall. And uh now apparently we’re dealing with wild horses, too. First stop of day five. We’ve descended from the pass and we’ve arrived here at what is one of the most famous natural attractions in Albania, the blue eye. So these are natural springs which apparently reach a depth of up to 50 m, possibly more. They’re not quite sure. That’s as far as they’ve gone. Um, and the the natural spring water just bubbles up. And because it’s fed through the limestone cast rocks that are found in this area of the Balkans, it’s just crystal clear. But you can see that it’s just clear with a tinge of blue turquoise. Yeah, it’s spectacular natural site. Pretty busy though. People coming from here from the Riviera from Saro where we’re heading to next. We made it 50 kilometers and we’ve just arrived at Bootrrent National Park in southern Albania. Check this out. So, we’re heading down here towards this uh lagoon area and beyond that is Greece. And interestingly on the ride we’ve seen a lot of a lot more churches again and a lot of the signs are in uh the direction signs are in Greek and in Albanian. So I think there’s a lot of Greek speakaking communities in this southern part of Albania in this borderland. How you feeling Kev? Want to ride off into the scorching hot sun. Hell yeah. This is the best way to see Albania. escape the crowds. Get off the beaten track and enjoy this beautiful ride. So, we’ve made it to Quesmill. So, on the other side of this little uh lagoon really or river um is Brint Archaeological Park. And to get there, we got to take this tiny little ferry uh which you can just see behind me crossing which has got two cars precariously balanced on top. So yeah, the only way to cross this little stretch of water at this point anyway is this uh tiny little ferry made from rusting uh iron and planks of wood by the looks of it. It’s a cable ferry. So uh it’s just being pulled across. I think it’s automatic rather than people actually pulling it. I imagine it’s been done in a similar fashion for centuries. This whole area in southern Albania is sort of uh defined by these lagoons, Sam Tamil and Budrint. And um yeah, you can see behind me there’s this uh big fortification. This is a Venetian castle. So at some point the Venetians were here controlling this area presumably. So they had access to the sea and their sort of trading port empire which is stretched across the Mediterranean. So they built this uh this Venetian triangular castle. And then on the other side of this little lagoon as well, there’s more fortifications which are part of Bootrint Archaeological Park, which we’ll check out once we’ve made it across the ferry. Oh, hi Kev. Kevin has made it to the top of the Venetian fortress. All right, let’s go. So it is 100 LE if you’re walking, 200 le for a bicycle, and you can exchange your money at the bar behind it. €100 €100 9,000 le I think that’s a pretty bad exchange rate but presumably this is one of the first you have to cross here if you come from Greece in the south unless you go all the way around Hello. [Music] My friend one by one because [Music] getting told off by the ferry man. So, this is the ferry. We got about three or four cars stacked behind us. We’re at the front on the bikes and it’s pretty rusty and rickety, but I think it’s going to get us there. Here we go. [Music] Go my friend. Thank you. Excellent. When you get to the other side, this is where the uh the major sort of sections of the archeological park are. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. So, this is the entrance to Brint National Park. It’s a,000 le to get in, which is about 10 quid. All right. So, we caved. We paid the 1,000 le entry fee to Bhutrint Archaeological Park. It is indeed a fascinating piece of history. Um, so this has roots going back at least 2,500 years, possibly before that to the sort of Hellenistic tribes and Alyrian tribes that lived in this area. But this is the Venetian tower. So the Venetians were here from the 13th, 14th century, 15th century. They controlled KFU, which you can actually just about see beyond this channel over there in the distance. Now when they took control of KFU they also took control of Bhutrin. So they would have access strategic access to the straits and the channels around the Balkan and Greek area. So the Venetians held on to this area until 1797. They were continually at war with the Ottomans who controlled most of the rest of the Balkan and eventually a guy called Ali Pashia who we came across in Gyracasta yesterday managed to take the place and then it came under well Alip Pashia’s rule normally part of the Ottoman Empire and he built another castle which I don’t think we can get to cuz you have to access that by boat and he built that somewhere in the straits to fortify his hold on. So there’s layers of history here. This is one of the earliest eras of construction. Anyway, this was the Hellenistic tribes that kind of lived in this area, built this temple dedicated to the god Asipius. Maybe Asepius. I’m not sure how my ancient Greek isn’t too good anymore. But anyway, the ancient Greeks built temples here in the 4th century BC before the Romans then came along and doing what the Romans do best, conquered everything. So as as Slepius was the the god of medicine, the Greek god of medicine. So people would come here to have their ailments, injuries healed and treated, which is why Butrin became a very uh important place in the Henistic world. So this was the temple dedicated to Eskepius, the god of medicine. And this this was the theater they built here as well. Spectacular. So the Romans, not just any Roman, but Julius Caesar came here in 44 BC and Caesar decided this would be an excellent spot to build a colony for his uh retiring Roman soldiers who served him so well on campaign. So they built many more extensions onto the the sort of shrine area that the Greeks had built and turned it into a more of a thriving Roman town. Now we’re on to the later Byzantine era ruins. And so they built a baptistry here after obviously everyone in the region converted to Christianity. Yeah. Number of ruins here is impressive. So glad we paid the 1,000 le entry fee to get in. Very cool. These would have been the city wall which were built alongside the channel obviously to protect the colony. This is such an interesting part of Albania. I don’t know if I can capture this on camera, but on some of the hilltops on the other side, you can see Christian churches and big crosses, big white crosses on top of them. But then in the distance along the valley stretching towards Greece, there’s also Minouret. This is a really multicultural borderland. So I suppose after the Byzantines were here um even though the Venetians held on to this specific area for a long time several centuries the Ottomans would have started to take over much of the surrounding surrounding lands. This place is just ridiculous. So according to the epic Roman poem the aned which charts the journey of the refugees from Troy to their new homes across the world. Uh some of the refugees made it to Bhutrint and as the Roman legend has it they founded the ancient city. Now whether or not that’s true we’ll never really know. However, what we do know from excavations is that these walls here on the water side date to the 4th century BC and rather spectacularly in my opinion. They were constructed almost like a jigsaw, like a Tetris piece. So, each piece of stone was put together block by block without the use of cement or mortar. A really impressive example of 4th century BC masonry and architecture and engineering. How cool. Yeah. So, you can see here, this is one of the channels that then feeds in and kind of cuts this whole basically a peninsula off from the mainland. And I think this road just down here, that’s where we’ll be cycling to get to Saranda after this. So from here we got 20ks left to go before we hit Saranda and the Albanian Riviera, which is where day five, our cycling journey across southern Albania will end. Beautiful. Let’s go, baby. Good morning from Saranda, the Albanian Riviera. We spent the night here in this little hotel by the beach with KFU, the maritime border between Greece and Albania behind us. So today is day six of ebiking around Albania. And this is the last day we’ll be on the bikes. So from here in Saranda, we’ll be heading north, following the coast all day for 55 km till we get to a little beach town called Hemar, which I had again never heard of before we undertook this trip. When we finally get to Hemar, we can rest our weary legs and enjoy a few last Albanian beers. So, let’s go. All right, 20k down on the final day. We’ve been coming up all of these switchbacks and hills. So far, today has been the toughest day apart from day two. We got 35ks left to push through and we’re just bloody hell. We’re coming up and down these hills along the coast. So, we started down here in Saranda. We’ll just be following the coast north until we get to Hea. All right, we made it to the top of the hill to this lovely little cafe perched at top the roadside. A spectacular view, of course. Getting a nice coffee with this view. Incredible little place. 40k is done up and down. We’ve done about 800 m climbing. Mainly up. How you feeling on the last day, Kev? I’m feeling great. I loving the climbs. Looking forward to a cold beer at the end of it. And a dip. And a dip of taxiki and of the sea. See, [Applause] we’ve made it to our penultimate stop of the day. The last stop before we get to Hear. and we pulled over on the coast at this place here. This is the Porto Palmo Castle. This was built by our man Ali Pashia who was a sort of like an Ottoman warlord uh who ruled much of Albania. Um he ruled Patrint and large parts of southern Albania and Greece, Greek islands as well. And he sort of established himself as a semi-independent ruler. He sort of paid tribute to the Ottomans, but basically ran much of southern Albania and parts of Greece as his own sort of personal thief. He built places like this to defend his rule. So, we’ve just walked over here from the mainland, but this used to be a little island. Um, but they attached it to the land and then later on it was used as a shelter and a military base uh during the Second World War and then during the communist era as well. Now, of course, just a little tourist attraction. Okay, one more stop it turns out. So, we’ve just come up from Alip Pasha’s Castle. I can show you it in the distance now, just along the coast there. And down here, of interest, is an old Soviet submarine pen. You can just see it down there, the concrete outline of it next to the turquoise waters. Now, during the Cold War, apparently, this area was used by the Soviets uh to basically store their submarines. I’m not sure how secret it was, how well known it was, but this would have given them access to to the Mediterranean, basically. And yeah, the uh the ruins of it is still there, which is quite cool in the bay. Um although this says it’s also a military zone. This could still be a Albanian military zone as well. So I better get on the road again. We made it into Heima. But uh right at the end, Kev’s ebike gave out. The battery went completely flat on the last hill. He got to the top of the hill and now he’s just coasted down. But now he’s having to walk the last kilometer to the hotel. So close, Kev. So far, I literally expended all my energy hitting hill thinking the downhill was the end. That’s the one mishap we’ve had all trip apart from animal attacks. Not bad going really. [Applause] 381.6 km and 6 days of cycling later. Completed it, mate. And we did it. We’ve made it to Hear. Woo! Time for a beer.