Toronto, Canada

This will be our first trip since covid, although it's the 3rd trip we've planned :) We booked our flights to Fiji in Feb 2022, bought a bunch of Lonely Planets and Moon Guides, and started researching. We have four weeks in Fiji, one week in Tasmania, and then six weeks in NZ.

We had originally planned to use Fiji as a base to explore a few of the smaller surrounding countries, but with covid entry / exit requirements unpredictable at the time, decided to minimize border crossings.  Instead we are spending more time in Fiji, hopping around a few of the island groups. There's some really cool places we're looking forward to, including (hopefully) seeing giant manta rays at the Astrolabe Reef, doing a farm tour of the black pearls at J. Hunter, standing on the International Date Line on Taveuni Island, and watching the lunar eclipse from Ono Island.

Tasmania has been on both of our lists for a while, and is also somewhat cooler weather-wise than mainland Australia in summer :) Hobart looks like quite the foodie town, so we have some trendy restaurants picked out as they book up weeks in advance. We also have our tickets booked for MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art.

Between Tasmania and NZ, we have a quick side-trip to the low point of Australia, Kati Thanda. This will be our 4th of the Seven Low Points.

Then we fly to Christchurch via Auckland, where we pick up our car rental, drive around the South Island, take the ferry to Wellington, and then drive back up to Auckland. We've tried to plan so we're driving at most two hours per day. Before we started researching, I had no idea New Zealand had a north and south island.  We plan to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, see Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, and visit wineries in Hawke's Bay.  I'm also looking forward to seeing the great albatross near Kaikoura (with wingspans up to 3.5m!), glowworm caves in Waitomo and Te Anau, little Blue Penguins in Oamaru and the sunrise at Te Mata Peak.

There's a good article on restoring original place names in Aotearoa (New Zealand). For this blog, I'll be taking the same approach as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, using them interchangeably.

On the technical side, I used the covid down time to add a few features to our travel blog, the most noticeable being search functionality, and dark mode. Behind the scenes, migrated the mid-tier to Python 3.9 and did some code clean-up.

With three new countries, I'll be up to 97 in my quest for 100 :)

Toronto, Canada

This was a shorter trip than most for us, two weeks in southwest Balkans. It turned out to be a pretty good itinerary, with lots of variety of sights and activities. We flew into Tirana and drove south to Gjirokastër, and then hopped along the coast north to Dubrovnik before heading back south to Tirana and back home.

We spent about half our time in Albania, and really enjoyed it. It's still under-touristed relative to other countries in the Balkans. It's best to rent a car to get around; the distances aren't that great (we spent on average two hours driving between cities), and outside of Tirana, the driving is pretty calm. If you can, Dubrovnik and Kotor are best visited when there are no cruise ships in port. There's sites such as this one where you can see the schedules.

After we were trying to figure out our favourite thing we saw; we had lots of favourites but there wasn't one site that I would say if you could only see one thing, see this. You could choose from any of a number of the places we saw and not go wrong. Here's our list of highlights:

• Walking about the streets of Gjirokastër *
• Gjirokastër Castle & Museums
• Ruins at Butrint National Park *
• The drive from Gjirokastër to Butrint
• Seafood in Sarandë
• Walking about the streets of Berat *
• Ruins at Stari Bar
• Walking about the alleys of Kotor *
• Tasting menu at Galion in Kotor
• Hiking up the Ladder of Kotor
• Driving around the Bay of Kotor
• Walking the walls of Dubrovnik *
• Restaurants in the staircase alleys of Dubrovnik

* UNESCO World Heritage site

We were very lucky with the weather. In December / January, it's supposed to rain about 50% of the days. After we got through the rain in Gjirokastër, we had sunny weather pretty much the rest of the trip.

There was a fair amount of variety on the trip too. When I was planning I thought it might be too much of 'UNESCO old towns', (for example, the Baltic capitals blurred for me after a while), but they are all very different. We liked the food everywhere; we also tried & liked the local wines. The coffee was excellent, it seems like every small restaurant has a serious espresso machine. Maybe because of the variety, overall, the trip seemed like much longer than two weeks!

Vienna, Austria

Homeward bound! We had a flight to Austria at 2pm, which meant we could have a relaxing breakfast, pack, and get to the airport without rushing. We rejigged our luggage cause we were overnighting in Vienna. We had booked through Expedia, and weren't sure if our journey was considered one continuous flight where our baggage would be checked through to Toronto. So packed the carry-on for what we needed in Vienna, and everything else in the bigger suitcases. We didn't have any bulky souvenirs so it was an easy pack.

Checked out of the hotel and drove to the airport. Google maps dropped the pin to the airport at some back entrance, and was trying to take us down some dirt roads. We ended up ignoring Google and just followed the major roads to get to the airport. Neil Stephenson in Reamde describes it much better:

The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard's unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed between two possible ways of getting to their destination, and it changed its fickle little mind and began calmly telling him which way to proceed as if this had been its idea all along.

The car rental guys were waiting in the parking lot, so it was pretty quick and easy to return the car.

It's a small airport and check-in didn't start until two hours before our flight. We browsed the souvenir shops and drank our water while still outside security. Finally the counter opened. Turns out our big suitcases did get checked through to Toronto, so it would be easier for us in Vienna.

We flew Austrian Airlines to Vienna. The flight was just over an hour, long enough to be served a heated meal, which was actually really good!

Got another passport stamp in Vienna. Then just walked through to the exit and grabbed a taxi to our hotel. This traveling-with-just-carry-on thing is pretty convenient!

The sun had already set by the time we reached our hotel. Quickly changed into our warmer stuff (boots, scarves etc) and headed out for a whirlwind tour of downtown Vienna. I felt like I should have read the in-flight magazine, where they have stories like 'Twelve Hours in Vienna'.

It just started to rain as we left. It was also very windy so we didn't bother with umbrellas, just our hoods. Walked towards St. Stephen's Cathedral, about 20 minutes from our hotel. I was surprised by the number of tourists out and about, particularly in souvenir shops. We found the one souvenir we wanted, a snow globe. Snow globes were invented in 1900 in Vienna; the original company still makes them.

St. Stephen's had a mass in progress, but luckily they still allow tourists in at the back. It's a huge cathedral, one of the landmarks in Vienna. At some point we'll be back in Vienna and will see it properly. For today we settled for some exterior night-time pics, sheltered from the wind and rain in an ATM overhang, and the brief visit inside. We also walked by a few other highlights, including St Peter's Catholic Church, the Hofburg, Albertina Museum and the Vienna Opera House.

We had dinner at Plachuttas Gasthaus zur Oper, apparently one of top places in Vienna for schnitzel. Good thing we had reservations cause they were non-stop with people, mostly tourists who probably googled the same sites as me :) We both had the schnitzel, conveniently highlighted on the menu. (Some other tables had ordered other items, which also looked good, but I think here you're supposed to have the schnitzel). I'm no aficionado, but it was excellent. I had a Marzënbier which went quite well with the food.

The next morning we had time for breakfast at the hotel, before heading back to the airport. We were already checked in, so just had to go through security and get to the gate. The flight home was uneventful, the end of our two-week trip.

Tirana, Albania

We slept in a bit for this trip till 9am and then went down for breakfast in the hotel’s nicely appointed dining room. (I think our hotel has a highly-rated restaurant for dinner, except it’s closed in off-season.)

Breakfast was quite good, and they made a decent cappuccino too.  There was an orange tree on the patio (we had to walk through it to get to the dining room), it was so full of oranges, that we just had to stop to take a pic.  We thought about just plucking an orange for the road but didn't.

First stop for touristing was the Pyramid of Tirana. It used to be a museum, and then converted to a conference centre. It looks like they had a big fire cause it was all fenced off, with the windows blown out. Oh well.

Next on our list was the National Arts Gallery. It too looked like it was under restoration of some sort, covered in brown fabric. On closer inspection it was actually covered with coffee bean bags stitched together, as an art installation of sorts. Unfortunately the doors were still locked, although it was 15 minutes after the scheduled open time. So far, 0 for 2 for touristing :(

We followed the pedestrian boulevard, and came across Bunk’Art 2, a history museum in a former Communist-era bunker. It was very well done, documenting the dark history during communism.

After we went back to the National Arts Gallery which was now open! At first we were puzzled cause about 90% of the paintings were covered under screens. Later we asked and it too was part of the art installation, a statement by the current curator. It’s interesting as an installation, except now we just paid admission to see a bunch of coverings. The paintings that we could see were similar to the Soviet-era art we saw at the Belarusian National Arts Museum, the style of which I really like.

We walked around some of the lively pedestrian areas.  The cafe patios were full with people enjoying the nice weather (relatively, for January) (It was about 12C and sunny).

We tried to find a little restaurant listed in the Lonely Planet, supposedly a classic Tirana place, near the food markets. It was closed (permanently or for the season, we couldn't tell), but there were plenty of other happening restaurants nearby.  We picked the one with the least number of smokers on the patio, and ordered off the menu. We should have just pointed at other tables; the most popular item was the qofte (ground beef and spices, grilled on skewers), served with a salad and draft beer.  We ordered a mixed grill and I had a 'large' beer, which turned out to be in a 1L glass! At least we had a sampling of all the types of sausages we had seen in the markets :) . Found another place for an espresso.

On our way back to the hotel, we walked through a carnival of sorts in Skanderbeg Square. There were classic rides, almost antiques, such as a double-decked merry-go-round and bumper cars. The kids activities were in the centre of the large plaza, surrounded by pop-up cafes and bars.  It seemed much more genteel than some other hectic carnivals we've seen.

We also stopped in at the Resurrection of Christ Orthodox Cathedral. Its 46m bell tower is a landmark visible from most of the centre.

The sun was setting and the temperature dropping, so that was it for the day. Relaxed back the hotel, and later went out for dinner.  We had reservations at Padam, which we didn't need as there was only a few other diners. The food was so-so. We were both tired, and had our flight to Vienna tomorrow, so it was an early night.

Tirana, Albania

Neither of us slept very well, I think cause we were afraid of sleeping in. We had planned an early departure, hoping to complete the six-hour drive to Tirana during daylight.

We finally woke up around 7am, and left the Airbnb just before 8am. The nearest taxi stand was a seven minute walk; Heather flagged down an empty taxi passing by almost immediately.

Got dropped off at Gruz Port, where we had parked our car. There was a hotel across the street that was serving breakfast, so we had a quick bite, using up our remaining kuna.

Paid for parking at the machine (I still don’t know how the prepaid parking works that I bought on the web), and we were on the road by about 8:45am.

We drove along the coast most of the way, mostly retracing our route. Got some good pics of Dubrovnik at sunrise.

Instead of driving all the way around the Bay of Kotor, we took the ferry across the narrow mouth for 4.50 EUR. It also gave me time to relax from driving.

There was no lineup to cross the border to Montenegro. Got both an exit stamp from Croatia and an entry stamp to Montenegro!

We bypassed Bar, and then to the border of Albania. Here there was a huge lineup, which took us just over an hour to get through. No stamps at this border; in fact we haven’t yet had a stamp at all for Albania :(

We continued south to Tirana. It got busier about 10km from the centre; including a couple of very busy roundabouts. (At this point we decided to not try to drive to the Skanderbeu Museum tomorrow, about 45 minutes out; I was done with driving).

We reached our hotel, near the hip Blloku area of town. Parking was just across the street in a secure lot, one of the easier parking locations for this trip.

Checking in was very fast and efficient, the opposite of our experience with our Airbnb host in Dubrovnik. The receptionist gave us the spiel as he carried our bags to our room, basically said here’s your room and then left. I wish all checkins were like this :)

We were tired, hungry and thirsty from the drive. Plus the sun was in our faces most on the time and we had headaches. I showered first and then went out to buy some water. Ended up at a bakery, where I also bought a cheese and tomato sandwich to split with Heather. It felt like the tastiest sandwich ever.

We had reservations tonight at Salt, a very trendy restaurant in Blloku. I think you need to book weeks in advance. We planned our trip in July so it was easy for us to get in.

Dinner was really good. Service was excellent. There’s restaurants like this in Toronto, we just can’t get into them :)

Walked home feeling better than when we first arrived. We fell asleep pretty quickly.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We were actually up before our alarm this morning. We were early for breakfast (the restaurant only opened at 9am) so walked around to the front of the ramparts. Dubrovnik was very peaceful at this early hour, although I suppose most of the world is quiet on Jan 1 :)

Breakfast was excellent again. To our surprise, when we asked for the bill, the waiter said that it was free for us! We asked him if he was joking, cause it made no sense. But it was true! We have no idea why; other people were getting their bills. Maybe they saw my number of followers on Instagram :). Or maybe they’re big Bollywood fans?(I had a fake brush with stardom in Indonesia years ago, cause a lot of locals mistook me for a Bollywood star). In any case, it was a pleasant start to 2020.

So onto the walls! There’s three access points, we started at the entry in the southeast corner. Paid our 200 kuna each (I had read that it was kuna only; but they did take credit card, although no Euro) and we were in!

We had the walls pretty much to ourselves. There were a handful of other people, but we quickly passed each other. The views from the top were spectacular, you really get a full perspective of the walled city. In particular, the view from Tvrđava Minčeta, the high point of the wall near Pile Gate, is amazing. It makes my list of one of the top things to see in the world. (Kotor was also amazing overall, but there’s not really a single viewpoint, which is the criteria for my list).

The sun was mostly pointing at us, so not so good for pics. The western side of the walk, where the sun would have been properly positioned, has views primarily of the Adriatic and not of the city.

It took us about an hour to walk around. We had seen Buža Bar from the walls, which is snuggled on an outcrop of rocks facing the Adriatic, accessed through a small passage in the wall. So we went there for a drink. It looked like a better experience than it was; the glare of the sun is pretty strong, and there’s gusts of wind that can spill your drink. We left after a few minutes.

In the main square, the city was serving champagne and oysters for free; and the orchestra was playing on the main stage. We had lunch reservations so didn’t stay too long.

So next was our lunch at Lucin Kantun. We were seated outside on the alley stairs, it was the archetypical view of a European restaurant. It was perfect.

Lunch was equally as good as the atmosphere. We split a bunch of tapas, all of which were excellent. Our favourite was the lamb skewers served with a honey lavender side. Overall it was the best meal we had this trip, with the exception of the tasting menu we had in Kotor.

We had plenty of time to change into warmer clothes and walk south along Ul. Kralja Petra Krešimira IV, to watch the sunset over the walled city. We had sort of seen it yesterday whilst rushing to our Bosnian friends’ car; today we walked to a vantage point with a clear view and watched the sun go down. It’s been a while since we’ve seen the sun set over such a clear horizon.

Got back to our Airbnb, and relaxed. Later went out for a drink to celebrate the starting of the end of our trip. We start heading back to Toronto tomorrow, first to Tirana for a couple days, and then a layover in Vienna.

Unrelated to anything, Dubrovnik has some of the best tasting tap water in the world imo.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We had breakfast at the big hotel in Luža Square. It was excellent, they also had good tea :)

Made reservations there for tomorrow’s breakfast in case not much was open on Jan 1. Later on we also made reservations for lunch at Lucin Kanton. So we were all set for food for tomorrow :)

We had plans to walk around the walls of Dubrovnik today, but then found out that the wall was open Jan 1, so instead spent today browsing for souvenirs and art.

There’s some good quality art in Dubrovnik. We were welcomed in one gallery with festive drinks and nibbles, celebrating their opening of an exhibit. We ended up buying an oil-on-canvas by a local artist, it was their first sale of the showing, about which they were quite pleased.

We had reservations for lunch at Bota Sare, a popular oyster and sushi bar. Good thing, cause when we arrived at 2pm they were full. As the Lonely Planet says, you don’t usually associate Dubrovnik with sushi, but they do know fresh fish here, so it makes sense.

We sat outside, with heat lamps and a blanket for our legs. There was a large boisterous table beside us, which made the patio lively. The patio was tucked in an alcove off an alley, with a view into a small square down below.

We had their sashimi and oysters, both were exceptionally fresh. Had an espresso and dessert after.

We wanted to try to catch the sunset from the top of the hill, and had about 30 minutes after lunch. So rushed back to our Airbnb, threw on our warmer jackets, and walked over to the cable car, about five minutes away.

Unfortunately the last cable car runs at 3:30pm (which seems odd, you would think it would run until just after sunset). We were resigned to trying again tomorrow. Another couple in the 20s, visiting from Bosnia, also came by to try to catch the cable car. As we were all walking away, they came back and offered us a ride to the top in their car! It was very nice of them :)

So we whisked up the hill. We had already missed the actual sunset, but still saw the sky turning orange / red, and then dark blue. It’s a beautiful place to watch the sunset over the Adriatic.

After, we rested back at the Airbnb and then later went out for a drink on a patio. There was another band playing tonight for NYE. (We liked yesterday’s music better.)

We aren’t much for staying up for the countdown at midnight anymore, so went back to our Airbnb and called it a night. We were awakened at midnight with fireworks that seemed to be exploding right over our heads. Happy New Year!

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We were on the road today, driving from Kotor to Dubrovnik via Trebinje.

Had breakfast in Kotor and packed up, and then pulled our suitcases around to the parking lot just outside town. We had booked our parking through the hotel, so it was cheaper, 10 EUR per day. (We also had in-and-out privileges, which I guess is useful if you’re exploring the surrounding area). There was a little box to drop off the parking card as we left the lot.

We drove north from Kotor, around the bay. It’s a beautiful drive. There’s small little villages along the shore, and the views of the water are amazing. We stopped at a couple viewpoints for pics of Ostrvo Sveti Dorde (the small island with a church).

Eventually we branched off inland for Trebinje. There were multiple checkpoints getting across the border. First we had a stop to pay a 3 EUR road toll. Next was a passport check at the border to Republika Srpska (one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). A few km later we had a customs and immigration check, where the guy asked to see our passports, car registration and green card (which allows us to take the car across borders). We got our passports stamped and were on our way! There was no line-up at any of the stops, in fact we hardly saw any other vehicles.

It really looked like another country after the last checkpoint. I don’t know if that’s due to geography (we were slightly inland) or economics. But it had a distinctly different feel, like stepping back in time a bit.

We arrived in Trebinje around noon. Found a public parking space, exchanged some Euro for marks; got a parking pass from the machine for an hour and then set out touristing.

It was very windy and cold today in Trebinje, about 3C. I think unusually windy, cause there were lots of small tree branches and twigs on the ground. One four-foot piece actually snapped off and fell on my head! I was okay though.

There was a traditional dance recital in the main pedestrian area. We watched them for a few minutes, per Heather they were very good.

Walked to see the old arch bridge, which is similar to the more famous bridge in Mostar. However the wind was causing whitecaps on the river (!), not very conducive to getting a full circle between the bridge and reflection. Oh well.

Walked through the old town. It’s in early stages of being restored, I can see Trebinje becoming a bigger tourist draw in the future.

Got back to our car and drove a few km to Stara Herzegovina, a restaurant recommended by our Airbnb host in Dubrovnik. It was excellent. We both had lamb ‘under the bell’. This is a cooking style in the region where the ingredients are placed under a terracotta lid and the lid covered with coals. It was delicious, some of the best lamb we’ve had outside of Turkmenistan :) Had a muddy coffee to finish, and then we were back on the road.

It’s under a 45 minute drive to Dubrovnik from Trebinje. The border crossing was straightforward with no line-ups entering Croatia (although lots of cars in the other direction, looked like could be an hour wait).

Google Maps has us enter the city from the north end which threw me off at first. I guess cause we were parking at Gruz Port it made more sense.

I had prepaid for parking at the port over the web, but couldn’t figure out how to use the permit, so just parked at the port and we’ll figure it out on the way out. It’s only 10 CAD / day.

Grabbed a taxi (metered) to Buza Gate, which was 80 kuna (about 8 CAD). I texted the Airbnb guy that we were at the door, he took about five minutes to arrive and let us in. He was rather talkative and took forever to describe the place and where to eat etc. Finally he left.

The sun was just setting so we rushed out to explore and take pics. Dubrovnik is an amazing place to see. Inside the walls, the town is bowl-shaped with all streets leading down to the middle. There was a band playing in the main square (part of their winter festival). It seemed like restaurants and cafes spilled out into every alley and street. Unlike Kotor, which had a very random layout, the streets here are laid out in a grid and it’s much easier to get around.

Anyways it was still very windy and cold, so we didn’t stay out much past sunset.

Later in the evening we went back out for dinner at Dalmatino, a restaurant recommended by the Airbnb. We didn’t much care for it.

Walked down to the main square for the live music. We really liked the band, Urban & 4, a popular Croatian rock musician. It was getting late (for us) so we called it a night.

Kotor, Montenegro

Today we hiked up the Ladder of Kotor, an ascent of 940m.

We dressed in layers. It was about 8C outside, which is perfect for hiking. We started in the morning so the first part was in the shade; at the top it was pretty windy (and probably a few degrees cooler), and on the way down we’d be in the sun. We were glad we took our toques - the wind was pretty cold at the top.

The trailhead starts outside the walls, near the Northern Gate. The path is quite obvious once you get on the trail; if you take a wrong turn trying to find the start (like we did), the locals are quite helpful in pointing out the way.

The trail zigzags up the hill, at a gentle slope. It’s covered with gravel and loose rock, very easy to hike.

At about castle level (260m), we could see the cutoff that leads to the castle wall, where a ladder was propped up to get through a window into the castle itself, where it’s then possible to take the steps down back into town.

We continued up. The path narrowed to about a cow width. Unfortunately there were also a couple cows walking up the path ahead of us so we were limited to their pace. The cows could actually walk up quite quickly, it’s just that they stopped frequently to munch on greens, chew their cud and look back disinterested at the tourists.

The views were great all the way up. Finally, we reached the top! The path continues further to the village of Njeguši, but we were keen to get back into town and have lunch.

We took a selfie (which we don’t do very often - maybe once or twice a trip), and then retraced our steps back to town.

It took us a total of 2.5 hours to walk up and back down, including time for pics along the way. The cows added about 15 minutes; so it’s probably just over a two hour round trip. (This is based on off-season - we saw less than ten other people the whole time.)

We tried another place for lunch, based on tripadvisor. It was average. I think most places inside the walls are varying shades of average, which is typical of a high tourist area. The best restaurants are outside of the walls.

After lunch we walked about 20 minutes around the bay to get pics of the walls at sunset.

Had drinks later on at Cesarica. It was a cosy place with nice atmosphere. Their food was okay but the draft beer was good!

Kotor, Montenegro

Breakfast was so-so at the hotel. I was surprised they had a buffet with so few guests, I thought it would have been cheaper for the hotel to offer à la carte.

There’s a couple of popular walks in Kotor. The shorter walk, variously called the Walls of Kotor, is up the city walls to the castle of San Giovanni (260m); the longer walk, the Ladder of Kotor, follows an old horse path through to the pass to the village of Njeguši (940m).

We did the shorter walk today. It’s off-season so there were hardly any other people on the walk (there were less than five other people at the castle at the top while we were there), although later in the day there were maybe 20 people. It’s also a much more comfortable temperature in December for walking. (It was a high of 11C today).

There’s stone stairs the whole way up (single file), and it took us about 30 minutes to get to the top, including lots of photo stops. There’s great views from the castle.

The pics were better on the way down (it was about 11am by this point) cause the winter sun had finally swung around the surrounding peaks to shine on the whole of the old town.

We went back to our hotel to clean up and change out of our trekking gear, and then headed out for lunch.

Decided to try Galion, around the bay, to get views of the old city from the outside. Turns out they had a five-course tasting menu so we didn’t even look at the rest of the menu.

The food was excellent. Our favourites included the grilled octopus, a mushroom broth, and a seafood risotto, although we really liked every course. We took pics of each, and when we counted them after, there were actually eight courses. No wonder we were full. Six of the courses were matched with wines, all from the Balkans.

After lunch, we did some souvenir shopping in the old town. Heather bought a cool-looking cat bag (a bag with an image of a cat). Kotor is another ‘city of cats’ and they do love their cats here.

We were too full for dinner, so later in the evening just went out for a quick drink. Ended up at the wine bar we saw the first day. They were playing tunes we liked (Manu Chau) and the place had a cool atmosphere. It ended up being a rather full unplanned day!

Kotor, Montenegro

We had a good breakfast at our hotel in Bar, then walked down the boardwalk to check it out. It was fairly busy with locals. Bar is a stop on the cruise ship circuit, and the ocean-front restaurants are built to handle the peak rush.

There’s websites where you can see the cruise ship schedules by port of call. There’s not that many at this time of year so I was able to book our trip to avoid the cruises.

Checked out of our hotel and drove to Stari Bar (‘stari’ means ‘old’). In 1979, the original location of Bar was hit by an earthquake and they relocated the town about 4km to the waterfront. Stari Bar is now slowly being restored as a tourist draw; it’s cool to wander around the ruins of the old castle that overlooks Stari Bar.

It was then a 90 minute drive to Kotor. Having learned from a couple other stops on the trip, this time I contacted the hotel ahead of time to figure out the parking situation.

Along the way we drove past the Sveti Stefan hotel island. You’ve probably seen pics of this on Instagram. It’s a very high end hotel, and only guests are allowed on the island. There was a convenient lookout point on the side of the road so I stopped to take a pic.

We also passed through Budva. When researching the trip, one of the options was Kotor vs Budva. A few travel blogs recommended Budva. Having driven through it, I’m glad we chose Kotor, it’s more to our liking. Budva I think has a better beach scene but that’s not our thing.

Google Maps showed 6km to our destination and I still couldn’t see the steep hills that surround Kotor. Then, we drove through a 1.6km long tunnel. Ah, that’s why I couldn’t see Kotor on the approach!

There was a bit of traffic entering the city centre. There was a cruise ship leaving at 5pm, the only cruise we’ll encounter.

Parked our car in a lot just outside the old city walls, and rolled our suitcases to our hotel (much easier than carrying backpacks).

Checked in, and then went to explore the old walled city. It’s really magical walking around the narrow alleys. Found a restaurant for lunch, and enjoyed fresh seafood and a bottle of Serbian white. It was excellent.

The sun was just starting to set (it was about 4pm) so we walked around taking pics with the dusk lighting. We just wandered - you can’t get truly lost cause of the walls.

We relaxed back at the hotel. We were still full by 8pm so just went out for some small bites. Had the most excellent olives. I tried a local draft beer which was refreshing.

It was a long-ish day, both of us had forgotten that we had visited Stari Bar in the morning. Also, in case Gerry or Tanya are reading, it’s country number 92 for me :) We were actually in Montenegro yesterday, but I forgot to update the country count until just now.

Bar, Montenegro

It’s a long drive from Berat to Kotor so we broke it up with a transit stop in Bar, Montenegro. Bar is part of the Montenegro Riviera on the coast of the Adriatic, and about a four hour drive from Berat.

We drove through some nice scenery on the way up, with the Adriatic on our left, and snow-capped peaks on the right.

We crossed the border to Montenegro at Muriqan - Sukobin. There was a five-minute wait, and then it was straightforward. I had to buy a Green Card which allows us to take the rental car across borders. It was 40 EUR for fifteen days, covering all of Europe. We did get our passports stamped on entry!

The last 30 minutes stretch to Bar was on a minor road, with barely enough room to pass oncoming traffic. We had to pull onto the shoulder for buses.

And then we were in Bar! There was some confusion driving to the hotel as the street it’s on is now pedestrian-only. So parked nearby, walked over and sorted out parking.

It was almost 4pm, just in time for a sundowner watching the sunset over the Adriatic. It was very nice, it did get a bit chilly (8C) once the sun disappeared.

We relaxed in our room until 8pm, and then went down for dinner. We’re on the coast so it was seafood for both of us, very fresh and tasty.

Berat, Albania

Merry Christmas! I think only once over the past eight years (since we started traveling over Christmas) have we actually had a fireplace (and thus a chimney) in our room. Our room in Berat was warm but didn’t have a fireplace, so no visit from Santa for us, lol.

Breakfast was in the same dining room that we had dinner. The room catches the morning sun and has great 270* views. The food was good, the coffee so-so.

After breakfast we headed up to Kalaja, the walled fortress on the hill, about 200m above Berat. It’s a steep climb up, with the occasional car going by. It took us about ten minutes to get to the main gate of the castle.

Normally there’s a fee to enter but not today, not sure if that’s because it’s off-season, or because it’s Christmas.

There were a couple other groups of people visiting too. We all started in a clump but then eventually spread out on our own ways. It’s an actual village inside, where people live, so really it’s just like walking about town. The highlight was Onufri Museum, set inside an 18th century church with a beautiful iconostasis, and 16th century religious paintings. We’ve recently seen similar artistry in Cyprus and Belarus; Onufri was the best we’ve seen.

Walked back down into town and had lunch at the same place as yesterday (we both had gyros). Called into a woodworking shop we had seen yesterday, to buy a wood carving we really liked, but he was closed. Walked down the pedestrian-only Boulevard Republika. One side is filled with restaurant patios, although somewhat sparsely used at this time of year (it was only 15C today). Heather picked an excellent coffee place where we had coffee and snacks.

We tried to find our way up to St Michael Church, this time using Google Maps, and we found it! It was closed (which we knew, it’s only open from 11am-noon) but it was more about the great views (it’s about 100m up).

On the way back down we tried to find our way out closer to the hotel. Somewhere along the way, I must have rubbed up against a lamp, and an enterprising lady popped out of her doorway like a genie. She started into her sales pitch for jams, preserved goods and raki. It was like watching an infomercial in a different language but still getting the pitch. Actually, it was like being in said infomercial. We had a sip of raki from a plastic water bottle cap (makes me strong), a sip of something else which had some benefit that I forget, anyways, it all made sense in the blur and I think we were lucky to escape with just buying a jar of fig jam, before the lady disappeared back into her doorway.

The spell wore off as we walked home. We threw out the fig jam in case it was a bad luck potion (we actually did throw it out, but just because we don’t trust the canning abilities of random people).

We had our Christmas dinner in the hotel restaurant. Tried a couple other mains, both were excellent.

After we walked down the pedestrian street and checked out the town’s Instagram-ready decorations. There were also classic rides like a merry-go-round. It was very festive.

Berat, Albania

We woke up with the sun shining for the first time on this trip. Had another large breakfast with great cappuccino, and then walked up to see the Zekate House (about ten minutes from the hotel).

The Zekate House is over 100-years old and an example of the great houses from the era. We had help to track down the caretaker (the opening hours are somewhat loose during offseason). There was a movie that had been filming on location and some of their gear was still in the house, for which the caretaker was very apologetic. The house itself was okay to see; the main room upstairs was the highlight with stained glass windows and carved wooden ceiling (it reminded us a bit of the Palace of Sheki Khan in Azerbaijan).

We walked back to the hotel (had excellent views of the castle and old town centre), checked out, and were on our way to Berat by about 11am.

The road was mostly in good shape, except for the cutoff to Berat. I suppose the Gjirokastër-Berat route is only common for tourists and not a major commerce route.

As we approached Berat, we could see the walled city atop the hill overlooking Berat. Then we turned the last bend and had our first view of the white buildings and went whoa, it looked really cool. (Later we read this blog, they had the same reaction).

Our hotel was accessible by car here so it was much easier to park and unload our luggage. Had a welcome drink (Turkish coffee), then freshened up and headed out to see Berat!

We walked across the Gorrica bridge to the southern side of the river, and then through the cobblestone alleys. Visited St Thomas Church (Orthodox Christian), it was okay. Checked out some craft shops on the north side of the river, and then tried to visit St Spiridon Church, but it wasn’t open even though the sign insisted they were open every day (maybe we were at the wrong entrance?). The sun was setting (around 4:15pm this time of year), got some sunset pics.

We tried to find our way up to St Michael Church, but go lost in the maze of alleys. Found our way out of the maze very close to our hotel! so called it a day.

We had made reservations at our hotel restaurant back when I planned the trip, because I wasn’t sure what was open on Christmas Eve, and also cause it’s one of the top-rated restaurants in town.

Dinner was excellent, I tried some lamb dish wrapped around sweet meats (a local specialty), Heather had tavë kosi, another local dish. We also had a bottle of Albanian white from the region.

So far it’s been a great time in Albania!

Butrint National Park, Albania

Today was a road trip to Butrint National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Over the centuries there were various empires that occupied the site, including the Romans. It got me wondering how many countries we’ve seen Roman ruins together. (Only seven as it turns out: Albania, Egypt, Italy. Jordan, Lebanon, Morroco, Portugal).

The weather was beautiful, sunny and about 15C. It’s a 90 minute drive south from Gjirokastër to Butrint, climbing out of the Drino Valley through the Muzina Pass (572m) back down to the coast. The views are really cool, especially of the blue-green waters of the Bistricë river near the pass. It’s also pretty fun to drive, with lots of gear shifting and steering.

We arrived at Butrint around 11:30am. We bought our tickets (300 lek, about 3 CAD) and entered. The ticket lady said we were the first guests for today. So, another day, another site to ourselves!

The ruins are spread out over about a 2km circle, very well marked for independent visiting (most UNESCO sites are like this). Our favourites were the baptistery, the basilica and the museum in the castle, which contain some very well preserved statues from 1AD. The ruins are surrounded by forest which adds to the mystique.

It took us about two hours to walk around, and luckily we had sunny weather the whole time.

We were close to the sea, so stopped in at a seafood place rated highly on Google maps, but it was closed for the season. So went to another place in the centre of Sarandë, which was excellent. Sarandë was a hopping little town, with lots of people walking along the boardwalk. This area is called the Albanian Riviera, it’s very beautiful.

It just started to rain as we got back into the car. It poured for most of the hour drive back to Gjirokastër. This time we were ready and had umbrellas in the car :) and not buried somewhere in our suitcases.

(Because we have a car for this whole trip and it’s all through urban areas, we took suitcases rather than backpacks so we could roll them, except we’re mostly in old towns with cobblestone and have had to carry them around so far).

Relaxed and cleaned up, and then went out for dinner. We ate at Odaja, a cosy little family-run place. It was really tasty (I had the grilled rack of lamb, Heather had sausage in a red pepper sauce). We tried to walk around after dinner but there’s not much for streetlights outside of the old centre, so we just headed back to the hotel.

Gjirokastër, Albania

We were able to sleep not too poorly considering the time difference (all of the places we’re visiting in this trip are six hours ahead of Toronto).

It was still raining. According to the forecast it was 100% chance of rain every hour, as far out as my iPhone gave forecasts by the hour. Luckily we had planned mostly indoor stuff today.

First up was breakfast, in the hotel restaurant seated beside a cosy warm fireplace. Breakfast was huge, which was good cause I was hungry. They made excellent cappuccinos too.

We bundled up for the rain and cold (about 13C) and headed out for the Castle of Gjirokastër. The old town is very compact - it took us about five minutes to walk up to the main gates.

Unsurprisingly, we were the only tourists at the castle today. It was amazing having the whole site to ourselves. Although, the castle has a very dark history, still within memory of current residents of Gjirokastër.

The entry fee includes admission to a couple excellent onsite museums. It took us a couple hours to see the whole thing. The rain and leaky castle walls added to atmosphere, especially in the prison cells.

Next, we attempted to walk to the Zekate House, but it was still pouring and the slate streets had turned into rivers, soaking our shoes through. So we called into a couple craft shops on the way back to the hotel, had lunch at a random open place (which was really good) and that was it for the day.

We were running out of places to hang our wet stuff between yesterday and today. Showered to get warm and clean, relaxed for a bit.

The hotel had recommended a couple restaurants for dinner, of which we tried the pizza place tonight. It had finally stopped raining when we walked to the restaurant - it was an odd feeling not being pounded by rain.

The pizza place was busy with locals. There was also what appeared to be two other tables with tourists! So we weren’t the only tourists in town :) Dinner was okay; we preferred the lunch place.

It was raining again as we left the restaurant so we just went back to the hotel instead of walking around town a bit. The forecast for tomorrow looks better, and then supposedly sunshine for the three days we’re in Berat. Let’s hope!

Gjirokastër, Albania

So we’re off again for another trip, two weeks over Christmas to the Balkans. We’ll be spending most of the time in Albania, and then to the port towns of Kotor (in Montenegro) and Dubrovnik (in Croatia).

We flew last night from Toronto to Frankfurt on Lufthansa. After takeoff from Pearson we had great views of downtown at night, flying over the 401 and then south around the DVP. Too bad my camera was in the overhead bin cause it was a great photo op.

We landed in Frankfurt at gate Z17 and our next flight to Tirana left from gate Z19, right beside it! But we had a three hour layover so it really didn’t matter :)

The sunny morning helped with keeping us awake and getting over jetlag. Had some snacks in the lounge. I’m always amazed at the number of people having a beer in the morning in airport lounges. (Although, they could have flown in from a different time zone.) There was also a line up for frankfurters at a booth in the terminal, which is another thing I don’t think I could have in the morning, even in Frankfurt.

The flight to Tirana was on a 90-seater Bombardier, a bit of a change from the 747 we flew over the Atlantic in. The airport in Tirana was also considerably smaller than FRA. After landing in Tirana we just did a U-turn on the runway and taxied to the terminal.

Got some Albanian leks while waiting for our luggage. The immigration guy was very friendly. There’s no visas required for Canadians (nor was there any entry fee, although the Albanian consulate website said it would be 20 EUR). Unfortunately no passport stamp either :( Still counts as a country though, number 91 for me!

We picked up our rental car (a Fiat), and were on our way to Gjirokastër, about three hours south.

It rained the entire drive. It looked like it could be very scenic if not covered in dark clouds! We passed through some small atmospheric towns along the drive, arriving in Gjirokastër around 5:30pm. Google maps took us down a couple narrow streets before we gave up trying to get exactly to the hotel. Instead we parked nearby and walked over.

The hotel proprietor met us just outside, and warmly welcomed us. (We wondered later if word got out in town about the lost tourists and he went to find us, I think we might be the some of the only tourists in Gjirokastër right now). He showed Heather to our room, and then went back out in the rain with me to pick up our luggage. We also moved the car to a better parking spot.

We cleaned up a bit and then went out for dinner. While we were in Frankfurt, I had sent a message on Facebook to Gjoça Restaurant to reserve a table for 7pm. Good thing I did, not cause it was packed, but because it’s normally closed in the off-season!

Dinner was tasty, all traditional Albanian dishes. In particular I was hoping to try qifqi, which is a sort of arancini with mint, found only in Gjirokastër. It’s on every menu here. Sure enough it was one of the dishes suggested by the restaurateur. Everything was delicious. Finished with some complimentary raki, the digestif of choice in the Balkans.

All in all it was a great start to the trip!

Toronto, Canada

We've been back home for a few days after our trip from Helsinki south to Kiev, and the Azores. We flew into Helsinki, and then went by land / water through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Our visa for Belarus required us to fly in and out of Minsk, so we flew from Vilnius to Minsk, and then onto Kiev. From Kiev we flew towards home, staying in the Azores for almost two weeks cause it broke up the long flights home.

Highlights included:

Finland and Baltic states
- Menu tastings at restaurants
- Historical old towns of the Baltic capitals (all UNESCO sites)
- Traveller Tour excursions between Tallinn & Riga and Riga & Vilnius

Minsk
- Seeing all the Soviet architecture
- Attending the ballet
- Drinking kvass from a street stall
- Overall traveling in Minsk, it's very untouristed

Ukraine
- UNESCO sites in Kiev (Kiev Pechersk Lavra, St. Sophia's Cathedral)
- Day trip to Chernobyl Exclusion Zone from Kiev

The Azores
- Eating (the fish and meat were excellent)
- Lunch at Bar da Poca on Pico Island
- Driving around Faial Island

We booked and planned out this trip in less than a week. Overall we planned the right amount of time for us in each city, although I would have added a day to Kiev to make up for the day trip to Chernobyl. Luckily we just caught the start of the heat waves when we were in Kiev. We did get more rain than we usually have on a trip, probably because we're going more off-season than in the past. Another change I would make is to book places with a/c in the Azores. It doesn't get that hot (maybe 23C) but it's very humid. I don't think our laundry ever dried in the rooms!

Overall it was a trip more about experiences, and less about major sites. There were only two additions to my Top 100, both in Kiev: Kiev Pechersk Lavra (#55) and St. Sophia's Cathedral (#79). Both were also unexpected as I knew very little about Kiev prior to the trip.

As far as country counts, Ukraine was #90 for me, getting closer to my goal of 100! Heather and I have now been through 42 countries together. Our next trip is to the Balkans over Christmas.

São Miguel Island, Azores

It was our first sunny day on São Miguel, (luckily we had sun today, it was also our last day here). We were waiting for a sunny day to visit Caldeira das Sete Cidades, which is the classic view of the Azores.

Had breakfast and then headed out west. We had driven this route a few days before in complete fog. This time around we could see the scenery! We didn't stop at any of the miradouros on the way up, cause we wanted to get to Miradouro da Boca do Inferno in case clouds rolled in later. The trail to the miradouro starts at Lagoa do Canario. The roadside parking lot was overflowing, we ended up parking on the side of the road a few hundred metres away. The more popular sites have all been overflowing with rental cars, and it's just starting to get into busy season. A side effect of the rainy weather over the past few days is that we haven't seen that many tourists at the miradouros. The Azores limits the number of tourists that can visit Islet of Vila Franca do Campo, they should probably be doing the same thing for other sites on the island.

So we parked and walked to Miradouro da Boca do Inferno. The view was amazing, but overflowing with tourists. Had to wait my turn to get to the front of the miradouro to take a pic.

We then drove a little further to Miradouro da Vista do Rei. It was similar to the views we had from Miradouro das Cumeeiras, just with more tourists. We decided to head down towards Feteiras instead of continuing along the main tourist path towards Sete Cidades.

The road down was beautiful, the roadsides covered by a sea of hydrangeas. Heather used my camera to take pics through the windshield as we drove.

We went back to Sunset Poço da Pedra for lunch, on the west end of the island. There was a funeral taking place as we drove up, with a procession and band walking through the narrow streets. We waited for the procession to pass, and then carried on.

Lunch was really relaxing overlooking the ocean. The natural pools were busier (today was Sunday), with groups of friends taking turns diving 10m from the rocks into the pools.

We got back home and got ready for dinner. There wasn't anyone at the hotel who could call a taxi for us, so we walked all the way into town, about an hour. It's mostly along the waterfront except for a five minute stretch. About half way we got held up by a band for the 2nd time today (!) this one looked like it was for a wedding.

We had dinner at Singular Bistro, the same place we had had dinner on Friday. They were busier today. We sat at a table outside, but then as we cooled down from the walk over, we started to get cold so moved inside. Normally when we go on vacation it's winter in Toronto, and so we try to have dinner on a patio on our last night. However this time it's actually warmer in Toronto and there'll be lots of patio opportunities when we get home :)

On our way home we heard live music coming from the main plaza so wandered over and watched for a while. They were quite good, and seemed to be playing their own material. Later we saw a billboard featuring the band (they're playing a concert here) and figured out the band was Caetano Veloso.

We walked back along the waterfront, a nice ending to our vacation!

São Miguel Island, Azores

The weather was getting better (the forecast just called for clouds, but no rain), the first day without rain in about a week.

We drove east to Furnas, the last of the main three craters in São Miguel. It’s home to Parque Terra Nostra (botanical gardens), thermal baths, and a fancy hotel. Hotel guests get access to the gardens and baths, non-guests just pay a small entrance fee.

It was sunny when we arrived at Furnas so drove up to a viewpoint at Miradouro do Pico do Ferro. It was a nice view, but not as photogenic as some of the other viewpoints on the island. We could see the bubbling mud below, as well as the covered holes where restaurants slow-cook stews in the hot water. (It’s a touristy thing to pre-order a lunch, but supposedly it’s very heavy so we passed).

Drove back down into Furnas and to the gardens. It was close to 1pm so we had lunch first at the hotel's patio bar. It was relaxing, overlooking the botanical gardens with birds chirping away in the trees.

The gardens have a marked walking path that takes you through the entire place, about 45 minutes. First you pass by the thermal baths. The baths here are a muddy orange / brown from the minerals, you can't see through the water. We were just here for the gardens, so continued on our way. The gardens have a wide variety of plants and trees, but not many were flowering. I'm not sure if we were just here at the wrong time, or if it's more of a gardens for people into plants. We found the thousands of hydrangeas growing by the roadsides more pleasing to look at.

So we finished the walk and got back on the road. Our next destination was the Gorreana Tea Factory. It's right off the highway and a popular tour bus stop. They have a self-guided tour through the production process (they have all the old machines here). At the end you can sample a couple of their teas. It was okay, I'm sort of partial to Ceylon tea from Sri Lanka.

We were losing steam so decided not to see the other tea place down the road (Tea Porto Formoso), and instead just went back to our hotel.

We had made reservations for dinner at Singular Bistro. However the couple we've been chatting with at the hotel had had dinner at Tasquinha Vieira and really enjoyed it, and so had booked a table for us for tonight, thinking we might like it too. So I Messenger'd Singular and asked them to change our booking there to Sunday night.

We took a taxi to Tasquinha Vieira, arriving about 7pm. They were getting busy. We had a couple appetizers which were excellent. For mains I had the lamb and Heather the fish of the day (parrot fish I think). Both were excellent too. Unfortunately it then took almost 45 minutes for us to get our bill, which put a damper on our opinion of the restaurant. Finally were able to pay, and then found a little bar to have an after-dinner drink. We had found the taxi stand so we could now get a taxi on our own to get home (taxis are otherwise only hail-able by phone; they don't drive around looking for fares).