Looking for Albania
Sunday 11/29/2009 4:59 PM
So we couldn't actually go to Albania in our rental car, but we were hoping to get close enough to see it. And we were close enough, but I don't think we saw it. As it turns out, the two days for which I rented a car were the first two days of rainy, cloudy, foggy, dreary weather we've had here in a couple of weeks. Still, Alex and I braved it alone: Emile had to stay in town to do work, so the boy and I headed out on the Montenegrin "highways" solo (or duo?) for the first time. We drove past Lake Skadar, the largest lake in the Balkans (half of it is in Montenegro and half in Albania), stopping at the Plantaze wine shop along the way to pick up some packable wine we can bring back to the States:
Then it was over, and, thanks to an exceptionally long tunnel, through the mountains to Bar, a coastal town and popular cruise ship port. Here are the mountains from Bar:
Once there, we sought out Stara Maslina, the oldest olive tree in Europe. It's at least 2000 years old, which means it's seen ... well, just about everything.
We had to pay a couple of euros to get inside the enclosed area where it stood, but then the woman who took our money told us we could walk right up to it instead of staying on the bricked area" one of the perks of not visiting during high tourist season.
Alex, of course, was thrilled to pose for a photo or two:
He acts annoyed with my insistence on going to see things like this (like the giant cow statue I made him pose in front of on our way to Florida last year, or the world's largest basket we spent an afternoon finding in Ohio), but I think that he secretly loves it.
We also discovered many oranges on the trees in the yard next to Stara Maslina:
Then we headed south to Ulcinje, and along the way, we caught sight of the sun on the water (in case you've forgotten which coast we're on, that would be the Adriatic Sea):
In Ulcinje, we found winding streets leading us down to a now-empty beach. Here's a view of it from the other side of the little bay. What looks like either two sets of wings or two fighter planes that have crashed nose-down, on the far right in the photo, is "Liberty Monument."
We spent an hour or so exploring the beach area, digging in sand, and collecting rocks:
Alex tried to convince me that he couldn't move his feet shortly after I told him it was time to head back to the car:
Afterwards, we drove up the coastal bluff on the south side of the beach. We found a little park area at the very top, and down the other side, a couple of rock beaches and a diving area. They were also unoccupied:
We enjoyed exploring Ulcinje, but there's something a little melancholic about hanging out in a beach town on a cloudy day at the end of November.
We'd planned to take the "old road" back to Podgorica, which would have taken us through the mountains on the south side of Skadar Lake. Emile had recommended this route because of its spectacular view of the lake, other mountains and, yes, Albania. But it was already getting dark by the time we were leaving Ulcinje, and it was too foggy up in the mountains anyway to have much of a view, so we went back the way we came. We did take one small detour into an olive grove along the way, though:
Once we got back to Podgorica, we took advantage of having the car by stocking up on groceries at one of the larger stores that isn't really walkable-with-groceries distance from our apartment. We also found Christmas trees there! They had garland, too, and a plastic star for the top, but sadly, no lights. Earlier, I'd decided that we just wouldn't have a tree this year since we wouldn't actually be here for Christmas, and I didn't even know for sure if we could get one here, but once we saw them, I realized that not getting one simply wasn't a possibility.
It's only a meter tall, and it was much less expensive than I ever thought one would be here (and evidently you really do get what you pay for when it comes to artificial trees: it was shedding as much as a live tree on New Year's Day as we were setting it up), but it's our tree. Our little Montenegrin Christmas tree. Made in China. Be home soon.
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