Life in Tirana

Rural Albania at its best

From the mountain town of Dardhe to the lakeside town of Gorcia on Lake Prespa we bring you these scenes. There is no "back to the earth here". Life has never been far from the earth. These places are along the south eastern side of the country. We went there and were probably the only tourists this season, avoiding the heavy crowds these 3 weeks on the sea coast.

The host of the Dardhe guest house we stayed in. Behind him is the plum tree, used mostly to make Raki. Peter calls it a "digestive" but I call it a very strong liquor!

This is one of their smaller sheds for the BBQ ing and hens

We had 3 rooms at this guest house and ate breakfast looking down a gorgeous valley in the mountains.

Natural spring water throughout the town

Streets in town and locals who took an evening walk with us

Hard to see but in the NW corner is the Albanian flag and the year 1926

As if this wasn't enough of a feast for the visual, we then drove to Lake Prespa and had a park ranger take us around this large lake. Three countries form the perimeter of the lake, Macedonia, Greece and Albania. Never saw a soul.

Apparently this was a monastery where the exiled monks were sent along the shores of the Lake

View from the cave (sleeping quarters) at the top

Another church up in the rocks with 14th century icons

There must have been some very bad behavior going on among those monks! This is the second monastery.


We spent the night in the most picturesque town of Gorica, on the Lake

This town is a mile or so from Macedonia. In the 1930s, King Zog of Albanian sold a section of the Lake to Macedonia and took other parts for himself. Most of the locals speak more Macedonian, their husbands work in Macedonia and the schools aren't sure what to teach. Below are the scenes from the village at days end.