After a couple days of snorkeling we felt like something different, so organized an excursion to the Lavena Coastal Walk, in Bouma National Heritage Park on the eastern coast of Taveuni.
We weren’t quite clear on the details of the walk, even after asking the resort, cause we were trying to figure out what footwear we’d need, and how much water to carry. (We are obviously well into vacation mode, as this is now our biggest concern). Based on the Moon Guide I had pictured a walk along the beach, and getting our feet wet a likely scenario.
After chatting with another guest (a friend of the owners, he’s visited here a few times and done most of things to do on Taveuni), we decided on wearing our hiking shoes, carrying water shoes, and 2.5L water between the two of us. We chose wisely :)
We left the resort at 8:30am, and drove around the north end of the island, passing the other resorts, and the airport in Matei. An hour later, we had reached Lavena Lodge, the end of the road. It’s a really scenic drive.
The Lavena Coastal Walk is about 5km along the coast, on a well-maintained trail, under the shade of trees, just above the high water mark. The local villages clear the trail once a month, fixing up any eroded areas and cutting back the plants and trees that try to take back the path.
It's possible to either walk there and back; or take a boat one way and walk the other. We didn’t want to spend three hours round trip walking in the heat so opted for the boat. Based on the tides we’d be walking in, and catching the boat back. It also meant we could leave our picnic lunch in the truck, and just carry water for one way.
We had a guide with us (more to help support the local villages; it’s impossible to get lost on the trail). Bill was an excellent guide - the walk is more of an educational walk than a hike.
Bill pointed out village life going on around us. We saw a villager cutting the stem of a kava plant into 2-inch pieces, which he then covered with palm leaves to keep moist. In a few days they’ll sprout into new seedlings which are then transplanted to grow as a cash crop. We also saw villagers looking for sea urchins at low tide. They’re cooked on the beach - covered with dry palm leaves that are then set on fire (it’s like kindling) and then a few minutes later after the fire has burnt out, the urchins are ready.
We recognized some of the plants from the ridge walk at Oneta; and learnt about new ones (like the tree that flowers overnight and drops its flowers at dawn). (Later we saw the petals on the ground at our hotel in Nadi).
There was a nice breeze coming off the water. At low tide the coral is more visible too and it’s a pretty view of the ocean through the coconut trees
There’s a rope crossing over the Wainambau Creek (the suspension bridge was washed out a few years ago). We switched to our water shoes for the crossing, the water went half way up to our knees.
About 10 minutes past the creek we reached the end of the walk, where another villager was selling green coconuts, $3 FJD each (about $2 CAD). We had one each, they were delicious. Our guide cracked open the coconut after we drank the coconut water so that we could scoop out the flesh to eat.
We then walked inland about 10 minutes to reach Wainibau Falls. The main drop is visible from the path; to see the other falls we had to swim about 40m into the gorge.
There were some teens enjoying their Saturday at the falls, climbing up the steep rock and then jumping from the top (10-15m?). Our guide jumped a few times too. He said the falls are his place to relax - he usually comes here every Sunday after church.
It was nearing high tide and the arrival of the motorboat to take us back to the start of the trail at Lavena Lodge, so we swam back out, changed back to our hiking clothes and headed back to the ocean.
We timed it perfectly - the boat pulled in just as we arrived. It took about 5-10 minutes to return by boat, where we had our picnic lunch that had been packed by our resort.
Overall we really enjoyed the excursion, I’d definitely recommend it if you’re visiting Taveuni. It’s a way to see village life without it seeming forced or fake; the views along the trail are great and the waterfall at the end is really refreshing.
I had ordered the steak for dinner, having eyed it the past few days, cause it was sourced from the island. It was really good, grilled medium rare and served with green beans fresh from their garden and a baked potato. Mmm good.
Friday, November 18, 2022
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Taveuni, Fiji
Another day, another couple snorkel sites at Rainbow Reef (Coral Garden and Storm Warning). The water was choppier today, which made it less enjoyable - mostly we were trying to not get separated from the group. It was a larger group today - five snorkelers, two free divers, two guides. Our new snorkels worked out well in the rougher water.
Today’s snorkeling was longer, we only got back in at 2pm. We rushed to have lunch cause we had booked a mini-excursion at 3:30pm, to see the International Dateline and a couple other highlights.
We needn’t have rushed cause it’s all pretty relaxed here. First we drove to the Catholic mission, a large stone church with original stained glass. There’s no pews - the congregation sits on the floor (we removed our shoes before entering).
Next we did the tourist thing at the International Dateline. Technically it’s the 180° longitude line, and not the dateline, but it sounds better for marketing. It is the furthest east and the furthest west I’ve been. Took pics with my iPhone to see what the GPS said. On the west side it registered -179.999987° and on the east 180.000000°, which was pretty cool.
On the way to the next stop, we passed by a tree where dozens of bats were asleep. I’ve never seen bats sleeping out in the open before (just in caves). I think it’s related to the fact there’s no predators on Taveuni Island.
The last stop was the Waitavala Sliding Rocks. Water erosion and moss have created a 50m long slide. On Sundays it’s crowded with kids enjoying themselves. Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone there when we visited.
On Fridays the resort has a kava night. Nakia is smaller than Oneta and so there were only 10 or so people drinking kava. We had a few low tide rounds (similar to Starbucks, there’s a whole new set of terms for small / medium / large; in this case it’s low tide / high tide / tsunami, with low tide about half a coconut shell).
Had dinner and then fell asleep pretty quickly, it was a rather full day.
Today’s snorkeling was longer, we only got back in at 2pm. We rushed to have lunch cause we had booked a mini-excursion at 3:30pm, to see the International Dateline and a couple other highlights.
We needn’t have rushed cause it’s all pretty relaxed here. First we drove to the Catholic mission, a large stone church with original stained glass. There’s no pews - the congregation sits on the floor (we removed our shoes before entering).
Next we did the tourist thing at the International Dateline. Technically it’s the 180° longitude line, and not the dateline, but it sounds better for marketing. It is the furthest east and the furthest west I’ve been. Took pics with my iPhone to see what the GPS said. On the west side it registered -179.999987° and on the east 180.000000°, which was pretty cool.
On the way to the next stop, we passed by a tree where dozens of bats were asleep. I’ve never seen bats sleeping out in the open before (just in caves). I think it’s related to the fact there’s no predators on Taveuni Island.
The last stop was the Waitavala Sliding Rocks. Water erosion and moss have created a 50m long slide. On Sundays it’s crowded with kids enjoying themselves. Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone there when we visited.
On Fridays the resort has a kava night. Nakia is smaller than Oneta and so there were only 10 or so people drinking kava. We had a few low tide rounds (similar to Starbucks, there’s a whole new set of terms for small / medium / large; in this case it’s low tide / high tide / tsunami, with low tide about half a coconut shell).
Had dinner and then fell asleep pretty quickly, it was a rather full day.
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Taveuni, Fiji
We had set our alarms for 6:45am so that we could eat breakfast and be at the dive shop by 8:15am. But as usual we were up at sunrise at 5am.
Breakfast was excellent, with lots of fresh fruit (pineapple, bananas, passion fruit, apples, oranges, papaya).
The dive shop is run by the daughter of the Nakia Resort owners, just a five minute walk down the road. We walked over in our full gear, I’m sure the locals are used to seeing this by now.
There were two other couples snorkeling with us, including two doctors. (It seems like about half the other people we’ve met so far have been doctors or nurses.)
The water was really smooth, similar to our ferry ride yesterday. Rainbow reef is at the south end of the Somosomo strait, about 30 minutes from the dive shop. We snorkeled at two sites, Cabbage Patch, and then Storm Warning. At the 2nd site you could see why they call it rainbow reef - there were fish and coral of all the colours of the rainbow. It’s one the best sites I’ve seen for both. The smooth water made taking pics much easier.
We were back on shore by noon, showered and having lunch by 1pm. We relaxed the rest of the day.
Breakfast was excellent, with lots of fresh fruit (pineapple, bananas, passion fruit, apples, oranges, papaya).
The dive shop is run by the daughter of the Nakia Resort owners, just a five minute walk down the road. We walked over in our full gear, I’m sure the locals are used to seeing this by now.
There were two other couples snorkeling with us, including two doctors. (It seems like about half the other people we’ve met so far have been doctors or nurses.)
The water was really smooth, similar to our ferry ride yesterday. Rainbow reef is at the south end of the Somosomo strait, about 30 minutes from the dive shop. We snorkeled at two sites, Cabbage Patch, and then Storm Warning. At the 2nd site you could see why they call it rainbow reef - there were fish and coral of all the colours of the rainbow. It’s one the best sites I’ve seen for both. The smooth water made taking pics much easier.
We were back on shore by noon, showered and having lunch by 1pm. We relaxed the rest of the day.
Taveuni, Fiji
We had an early 4:50am start to catch the bus / ferry combo to get to Taveuni. The sunrise was beautiful, the first cloudless morning here, although we didn’t have much time to admire it.
One final drive up the steep driveway, tossed out the garbage just before joining the main road, and then off to the bus station.
I dropped off Heather at the bus station with our luggage, and then carried on a few hundred metres to drop off the car. They had to wake someone up to open the office and retrieve my cash deposit, which threw off my timing a bit.
The Hot Bread Kitchen was en route so I stopped in and bought a danish for the road.
Made it back to the bus station a few minutes before the scheduled 6am departure. While I was returning the car rental, Heather had figured out we had tried to board the wrong bus (there’s two companies that run the same bus/ferry route, on different buses and boats). Anyways Heather was waiting outside the bus we’d bought tickets for, and we boarded.
It’s one of the few times we’re taking public transit on this trip. It’s quite the change from our first trip together through Morocco!
The bus left around 6:15am, which I figured wasn’t too bad (although, they did have a boat to catch). The bus was one of the most-windowed buses I’ve been on, with excellent views to counter motion sickness. Plus the windows opened so we didn’t need to wear our masks (we haven’t seen much mask usage at all in Fiji, just a handful in the domestic terminal in Nadi).
It’s a very scenic 1.5 hour drive along the Hibiscus Highway. It mostly follows the coast before cutting inland to Buca Bay for the last 15 minutes.
Buca Bay was literally as smooth as glass. I’ve similarly commented on other bodies of water, but this was perfectly still.
It’s usually about an hour wait for the boat; the locals all waited on the bus. It felt a bit enclosed now that there wasn’t breeze from the open windows, so we waited outside in the shade if the bus, and ate our danish.
The jetty is being built (or rebuilt) and was just mud on big boulders, with some wooden planks near the docking. Lucky for us it was a nice day, as it would be pretty messy otherwise.
I moved our suitcases from the bus hold to the front of the docking, balanced on a less-muddy group of boulders. At first I repeated our bus error, moving them first to the other company’s section of docking, until a helpful person asked if I wanted the red boat.
The other boat arrived first, and many more people disembarked than I could first see. The waiting passengers boarded quickly, in the meantime our red boat arrived (formally called the Taveuni Princess). Luckily our boat was not crowded at all, only about 20% full. Folks were really nice, helping us carry our suitcases onboard and showing us where to stow them (on a mat in the middle of the boat).
I thought the water would become rougher once we exited Buca Bay or rounded Kioa Island, but the water was just as calm in the middle of Somosomo Strait. The only waves were the ripples from the boat. Heather actually read a bit of her book and then took an nap! Based on other recent ferry crossings (eg Faial to Pico) we were expecting the worst, with motion sickness pills on hand just in case.
We arrived at Taveuni Island around 10:20am, 10 minutes ahead of what the ticket agent had told me in Suvasuva, one of the more accurate forecasts from someone in sales that I’ve received.
A driver from Nakia Resort pulled up shortly, and after about a 15 minute drive we arrived at the resort, a very relaxing transit door-to-door!
Robyn greeted us at the main lodge (the owners are Jim and Robyn, expats from California). Shared a fruit platter and had a coffee (some much-needed caffeine), before checking out our bure. Way back in April we had booked the Sunset Bure, which now seems a lifetime ago. Nakia only has four bures, it’s in that sweet spot for us for hotel size.
After a small lunch (we split an order of grilled cheese and fries) we walked down to the house reef to cool off. Snorkeled out about 100m before turning back, having accomplished our main goal of cooling off. We did see more coral and fishes than I expected though.
We had an afternoon chai tea and banana cake which we probably should have skipped as it had more sugar than we normally eat in a week.
Watched the sunset from inside our bure, rather than from the main lodge where supposedly the pics are better, mostly to stay away from mosquitoes.
After dusk, we enjoyed a nice dinner at the main lodge, although we were still pretty full from our earlier snack.
Tried to avoid stepping on the Fijian ground frogs on the 20m walk back to our bure. We’ve also encountered the frogs at the Doubletree in Nadi, they’re about golfball sized and tend to come out at night. They don’t move until you’re upon them, and then hop away. We’re phobic about them hopping into us.
Anyways made it back to the bure without incident and went to bed.
One final drive up the steep driveway, tossed out the garbage just before joining the main road, and then off to the bus station.
I dropped off Heather at the bus station with our luggage, and then carried on a few hundred metres to drop off the car. They had to wake someone up to open the office and retrieve my cash deposit, which threw off my timing a bit.
The Hot Bread Kitchen was en route so I stopped in and bought a danish for the road.
Made it back to the bus station a few minutes before the scheduled 6am departure. While I was returning the car rental, Heather had figured out we had tried to board the wrong bus (there’s two companies that run the same bus/ferry route, on different buses and boats). Anyways Heather was waiting outside the bus we’d bought tickets for, and we boarded.
It’s one of the few times we’re taking public transit on this trip. It’s quite the change from our first trip together through Morocco!
The bus left around 6:15am, which I figured wasn’t too bad (although, they did have a boat to catch). The bus was one of the most-windowed buses I’ve been on, with excellent views to counter motion sickness. Plus the windows opened so we didn’t need to wear our masks (we haven’t seen much mask usage at all in Fiji, just a handful in the domestic terminal in Nadi).
It’s a very scenic 1.5 hour drive along the Hibiscus Highway. It mostly follows the coast before cutting inland to Buca Bay for the last 15 minutes.
Buca Bay was literally as smooth as glass. I’ve similarly commented on other bodies of water, but this was perfectly still.
It’s usually about an hour wait for the boat; the locals all waited on the bus. It felt a bit enclosed now that there wasn’t breeze from the open windows, so we waited outside in the shade if the bus, and ate our danish.
The jetty is being built (or rebuilt) and was just mud on big boulders, with some wooden planks near the docking. Lucky for us it was a nice day, as it would be pretty messy otherwise.
I moved our suitcases from the bus hold to the front of the docking, balanced on a less-muddy group of boulders. At first I repeated our bus error, moving them first to the other company’s section of docking, until a helpful person asked if I wanted the red boat.
The other boat arrived first, and many more people disembarked than I could first see. The waiting passengers boarded quickly, in the meantime our red boat arrived (formally called the Taveuni Princess). Luckily our boat was not crowded at all, only about 20% full. Folks were really nice, helping us carry our suitcases onboard and showing us where to stow them (on a mat in the middle of the boat).
I thought the water would become rougher once we exited Buca Bay or rounded Kioa Island, but the water was just as calm in the middle of Somosomo Strait. The only waves were the ripples from the boat. Heather actually read a bit of her book and then took an nap! Based on other recent ferry crossings (eg Faial to Pico) we were expecting the worst, with motion sickness pills on hand just in case.
We arrived at Taveuni Island around 10:20am, 10 minutes ahead of what the ticket agent had told me in Suvasuva, one of the more accurate forecasts from someone in sales that I’ve received.
A driver from Nakia Resort pulled up shortly, and after about a 15 minute drive we arrived at the resort, a very relaxing transit door-to-door!
Robyn greeted us at the main lodge (the owners are Jim and Robyn, expats from California). Shared a fruit platter and had a coffee (some much-needed caffeine), before checking out our bure. Way back in April we had booked the Sunset Bure, which now seems a lifetime ago. Nakia only has four bures, it’s in that sweet spot for us for hotel size.
After a small lunch (we split an order of grilled cheese and fries) we walked down to the house reef to cool off. Snorkeled out about 100m before turning back, having accomplished our main goal of cooling off. We did see more coral and fishes than I expected though.
We had an afternoon chai tea and banana cake which we probably should have skipped as it had more sugar than we normally eat in a week.
Watched the sunset from inside our bure, rather than from the main lodge where supposedly the pics are better, mostly to stay away from mosquitoes.
After dusk, we enjoyed a nice dinner at the main lodge, although we were still pretty full from our earlier snack.
Tried to avoid stepping on the Fijian ground frogs on the 20m walk back to our bure. We’ve also encountered the frogs at the Doubletree in Nadi, they’re about golfball sized and tend to come out at night. They don’t move until you’re upon them, and then hop away. We’re phobic about them hopping into us.
Anyways made it back to the bure without incident and went to bed.
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Savusavu, Fiji
J Hunter Pearl tour, take 2. Yesterday we tried to go for our tour, but realized I had messed up the booking, and it was actually today.
It was just the two of us on a tour again today. First got a spiel about how Justin Hunter founded the place, and a little bit on pearl production.
Then we saw how the oysters are surgically seeded with a starter, around which the pearl will grow.
Next was a boat ride into the bay, where we snorkeled to see the oyster farms. It had rained a lot yesterday and the water was pretty murky. Even if it was clear, I don’t think it’s worth the effort to get geared up and wet for about 30 seconds of looking. You could probably see most of it from the boat.
Back to J Hunter, where there was no sales pitch at all, to our surprise. The least expensive item on display was around $2,000 FJD (over $1,000 CAD) so maybe they had already pegged us as not potential customers. We asked to see the $80 and $100 FJD bins (Radhika had given us this tip) and picked out a mostly round one for a souvenir.
We went back to our Airbnb to quickly shower (after the snorkeling). Then we drove out to see the Flora Tropica Botanical Gardens. The gate was locked, with a phone number to call. So we drove 15 minutes back to the Airbnb, called the number, arranged to meet at the gates shortly, and drive back.
Finally we got in :) The friendly gatekeeper chatted us up for a few minutes and then we were off.
The path is mostly a wooden walkway, up and down the hillside. They did have quite the variety of palms, but the star of the show for us were the parrots. We had a really good view of them eating something from a pink flowered tree.
We drove back to town, filled up the gas tank (we hadn’t driven much, just $30 FJD worth). We were glad we had the rental though; stuff is far enough away that it’s not walkable, and hailing taxis isn’t really a thing here (you have to phone for a taxi).
So it ended up being a full day. It was also the first nice sunny day we had (it’s getting into rainy season so we weren’t expecting such a nice day). Finally had a nice sunset view over the bay too.
It was just the two of us on a tour again today. First got a spiel about how Justin Hunter founded the place, and a little bit on pearl production.
Then we saw how the oysters are surgically seeded with a starter, around which the pearl will grow.
Next was a boat ride into the bay, where we snorkeled to see the oyster farms. It had rained a lot yesterday and the water was pretty murky. Even if it was clear, I don’t think it’s worth the effort to get geared up and wet for about 30 seconds of looking. You could probably see most of it from the boat.
Back to J Hunter, where there was no sales pitch at all, to our surprise. The least expensive item on display was around $2,000 FJD (over $1,000 CAD) so maybe they had already pegged us as not potential customers. We asked to see the $80 and $100 FJD bins (Radhika had given us this tip) and picked out a mostly round one for a souvenir.
We went back to our Airbnb to quickly shower (after the snorkeling). Then we drove out to see the Flora Tropica Botanical Gardens. The gate was locked, with a phone number to call. So we drove 15 minutes back to the Airbnb, called the number, arranged to meet at the gates shortly, and drive back.
Finally we got in :) The friendly gatekeeper chatted us up for a few minutes and then we were off.
The path is mostly a wooden walkway, up and down the hillside. They did have quite the variety of palms, but the star of the show for us were the parrots. We had a really good view of them eating something from a pink flowered tree.
We drove back to town, filled up the gas tank (we hadn’t driven much, just $30 FJD worth). We were glad we had the rental though; stuff is far enough away that it’s not walkable, and hailing taxis isn’t really a thing here (you have to phone for a taxi).
So it ended up being a full day. It was also the first nice sunny day we had (it’s getting into rainy season so we weren’t expecting such a nice day). Finally had a nice sunset view over the bay too.
Monday, November 14, 2022
Savusavu, Fiji
I had booked a tour at J Hunter Pearl, but messed up the booking, asking for Monday Nov 15 (it’s actually Mon 14 and Tue 15). They had us down for Tue 15 :(
So headed over to see if KokoMana cocoa & chocolate was open. Luckily they were, with a tour starting shortly at 10am. They were waiting for a couple guests from some other resort but they ended up canceling so we had a private tour for two :)
We’ve been on a couple other chocolate tours on other trips, and both of those started with the dried fermented cocao bean. The tour here however, started with the cocao trees. We found this part just as interesting!
Our guide showed us various species of cocao, both flowering and in various stages of ripeness. They’ve also started growing plants that go well with chocolate - like vanilla, chilli, ginger, coconut. We’d never seen and vanilla plant before!
We saw the cocao pods being husked (split open and the beans separated), and tried a fresh pod (you just eat the pulp, which is slightly sweet).
The pods are then allowed to ferment, after which they are sun-dried, and then stored for months.
They didn’t have any production today so we just moved onto the best part of the tour, the tastings :)
We sampled I think seven different types, our favourites included the chocolate & chai, and chocolate & ginger.
The whole tour was just under two hours and we really enjoyed it.
After we drove back to town, and tried to find the art gallery in the Copra Shed Marina that was mentioned in the Moon guide book. We found out later that the owner had passed away a few years ago and the shop was no more.
The rest of the day was pretty casual.
So headed over to see if KokoMana cocoa & chocolate was open. Luckily they were, with a tour starting shortly at 10am. They were waiting for a couple guests from some other resort but they ended up canceling so we had a private tour for two :)
We’ve been on a couple other chocolate tours on other trips, and both of those started with the dried fermented cocao bean. The tour here however, started with the cocao trees. We found this part just as interesting!
Our guide showed us various species of cocao, both flowering and in various stages of ripeness. They’ve also started growing plants that go well with chocolate - like vanilla, chilli, ginger, coconut. We’d never seen and vanilla plant before!
We saw the cocao pods being husked (split open and the beans separated), and tried a fresh pod (you just eat the pulp, which is slightly sweet).
The pods are then allowed to ferment, after which they are sun-dried, and then stored for months.
They didn’t have any production today so we just moved onto the best part of the tour, the tastings :)
We sampled I think seven different types, our favourites included the chocolate & chai, and chocolate & ginger.
The whole tour was just under two hours and we really enjoyed it.
After we drove back to town, and tried to find the art gallery in the Copra Shed Marina that was mentioned in the Moon guide book. We found out later that the owner had passed away a few years ago and the shop was no more.
The rest of the day was pretty casual.
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Savusavu, Fiji
There’s not much happening on Savusavu on Sundays, so we just planned to drive around the Hibiscus Highway to Devodara Blue Lagoon, a nice beach. “Highway” might just be a marketing term, although it is a smooth paved road. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the access point to the beach (not sure if it’s all blocked by resorts now). The drive itself is nice; the bus to get to Taveuni goes the same route so we turned back after about 15 minutes.
That was it for the day - got back to the Airbnb and read and enjoyed the view. Also used the landline phone to book the chocolate tour for Tuesday.
We had asked Radhika (our chef) if she could cook inside the chalet (there’s a separate kitchen at the back that she normally cooks in). The chalet has an island counter with bar stools which was perfect to watch Radhika cook and eat. It was a much more enjoyable experience.
Somehow we were exhausted (I think the heat) and fell asleep shortly after dinner, around 8pm.
That was it for the day - got back to the Airbnb and read and enjoyed the view. Also used the landline phone to book the chocolate tour for Tuesday.
We had asked Radhika (our chef) if she could cook inside the chalet (there’s a separate kitchen at the back that she normally cooks in). The chalet has an island counter with bar stools which was perfect to watch Radhika cook and eat. It was a much more enjoyable experience.
Somehow we were exhausted (I think the heat) and fell asleep shortly after dinner, around 8pm.
Friday, November 11, 2022
Savusavu, Fiji
We had big plans today to see the botanical gardens and then do a tour of the chocolate factory.
First up was a big breakfast, fresh juice, muesli and then eggs with freshly baked buns. We asked Radhika if she could cook dinner in the main kitchen so we could watch.
Places don’t open until 10am so we sat out on the deck and watched the boats go by. The forecast called for rain most of the day starting around 1pm, so we were hoping to tourist around in the morning, and then return back home and relax in the afternoon, so we didn’t get overwhelmed in the heat and humidity.
First we had an errand to buy our bus and ferry combo ticket to Taveuni. Found the ticket agent thanks to the handy Google map created by our Airbnb host. Bought our tickets from the very friendly agent.
Then drove west to the botanical gardens. Unfortunately it’s closed on weekends, as we thought it might be. We then tried the chocolate factory close by, but it too is closed on the weekend. It had a number to call to book tours so I took a pic to call later from our landline at the Airbnb.
With most tourist places closed, we instead decided to check out the lively centre of Savusavu. We parked on the side of the street once we got close to the centre (it’s only about a ten minute walk end to end).
We checked out the food market, which was busy. We’d seen similar produce in the Nadi market so I didn’t take many pics. Unlike Nadi, there weren’t any touts trying to sell excursions so it was a nicer experience.
There’s lots of little restaurants and plazas down alleys that had loads of character. We both agreed it’s one of the most charismatic little towns we’ve visited.
Stopped in at The Hot Bread Kitchen which seems to always have a line up, a good thing :) We bought some sausage roll pastries for lunch. The Airbnb breakfast is served at 8:30am and dinner at 5:30pm, so we’re trying to have just snacks for lunch. It’s unfortunate cause there’s so many restaurants in town that look amazing.
We had an iced coffee waterside at Copra Shed Marina, which is very popular in the evenings with live music. The bay was busy with boaters and sightseers.
The sky was darkening with the predicted thunderstorms so we called it a day, and drove back up to our place.
Relaxed the rest of the afternoon. Radhika showed up around 4pm ish and started cooking. For appetizers she made kokoda (although she cooks the fish in boiling water rather than lime juice), and for the main it was ginger fried fish (Spanish mackerel, alternatively called wahoo or walu in Fiji). Dessert was soufflé, everything was very yummy.
First up was a big breakfast, fresh juice, muesli and then eggs with freshly baked buns. We asked Radhika if she could cook dinner in the main kitchen so we could watch.
Places don’t open until 10am so we sat out on the deck and watched the boats go by. The forecast called for rain most of the day starting around 1pm, so we were hoping to tourist around in the morning, and then return back home and relax in the afternoon, so we didn’t get overwhelmed in the heat and humidity.
First we had an errand to buy our bus and ferry combo ticket to Taveuni. Found the ticket agent thanks to the handy Google map created by our Airbnb host. Bought our tickets from the very friendly agent.
Then drove west to the botanical gardens. Unfortunately it’s closed on weekends, as we thought it might be. We then tried the chocolate factory close by, but it too is closed on the weekend. It had a number to call to book tours so I took a pic to call later from our landline at the Airbnb.
With most tourist places closed, we instead decided to check out the lively centre of Savusavu. We parked on the side of the street once we got close to the centre (it’s only about a ten minute walk end to end).
We checked out the food market, which was busy. We’d seen similar produce in the Nadi market so I didn’t take many pics. Unlike Nadi, there weren’t any touts trying to sell excursions so it was a nicer experience.
There’s lots of little restaurants and plazas down alleys that had loads of character. We both agreed it’s one of the most charismatic little towns we’ve visited.
Stopped in at The Hot Bread Kitchen which seems to always have a line up, a good thing :) We bought some sausage roll pastries for lunch. The Airbnb breakfast is served at 8:30am and dinner at 5:30pm, so we’re trying to have just snacks for lunch. It’s unfortunate cause there’s so many restaurants in town that look amazing.
We had an iced coffee waterside at Copra Shed Marina, which is very popular in the evenings with live music. The bay was busy with boaters and sightseers.
The sky was darkening with the predicted thunderstorms so we called it a day, and drove back up to our place.
Relaxed the rest of the afternoon. Radhika showed up around 4pm ish and started cooking. For appetizers she made kokoda (although she cooks the fish in boiling water rather than lime juice), and for the main it was ginger fried fish (Spanish mackerel, alternatively called wahoo or walu in Fiji). Dessert was soufflé, everything was very yummy.
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Savusavu, Fiji
We had an admin day yesterday in Nadi. Uploaded my pics with the better wifi, caught up in my blog. We also went to Viti Sports in Denarau to buy scuba gloves and upgrade our snorkels. Denarau is like a gated community - we’re glad we didn’t stay there (it’s where the resorts are clustered in Nadi).
The next morning we had another domestic flight, this time to Savusavu. I had double- and triple-checked that I had booked to SVU (Savusavu) and not SUV (Suva), apparently an occasional mistake made by tourists.
Our Airbnb host for the place in Savusavu lives in Nadi and met up with us at the airport for a coffee. We had signed up for the breakfast and dinners catered in the Airbnb (she has a person that cooks onsite for guests) and it was a good opportunity to pay her cash for that.
There were only two other passengers on flight to Savusavu. I had a good view into the cockpit and all the controls (although I only recognized one, the map showing our flight path and location).
We flew over the Namema Marine Reserve and its blue green coral. I had looked at staying at the on-site resort, and while their website still works, the resort itself was destroyed by the cyclone in 2020.
We approached the airport from the north (inland side), and had to descend quite rapidly after clearing the hills just north of the runway.
The airport is small, as we expected, just a large open shed really.
We had departed about 20 minutes early, and so our car rental guys weren’t yet at the airport to meet us. A friendly local asked if we needed help, and I explained that we were waiting for Pranesh from James Car Rentals. The friendly local asked if we wanted to use his phone to call; and while I was looking up the number, the local just called Pranesh, apparently having him in his contacts.
The rental guys pulled up shortly, although it was just a staff person and not Pranesh (we didn’t know and had been chatting him up, referencing our email exchanges). Anyways it was a two minute drive to town and the car rental place where we met the real Pranesh.
It was a quick admin process. A couple signatures, bond deposit (in cash, to avoid credit card fees), demo of how to switch to 4WD, and we were off in our Suzuki Jimny.
I’ve driven on the left side on previous trips so it wasn’t too big a deal, although I did reach for my seatbelt over my left shoulder by reflex, and then turned on the wipers to indicate my left turn.
Our Airbnb (nicknamed Koko) was about a ten minute drive from town. At the cutoff, we turned left onto a single lane dirt road and engaged the 4WD to get up the steep incline. A couple hundred metres up, there was a car coming down so I pulled over to allow them to pass. As they passed I asked the driver if Koko was further uphill. Turns out his wife is our chef and he knew who we were!
So overall a very small town experience to start :)
The driveway to Koko is a very steep decline cut into the side of the hill. Not for inexperienced drivers for sure.
Met Ben, the gardener, as well as Tiger, a neighbour’s dog.
There’s a great 270* view of Savusavu Bay and the town centre from the place.
After cooling down, we headed back into town to pick up beer and wine at Sea Lovers for our dinners. We had to select our dinner options in advance so that Radhika (our chef) could buy ingredients at the market. However we didn’t know what would be served when, so we just got an assortment of wines, all screw cap, from NZ and Australia. We have a fridge so we can just pour a glass that matches each course and then store for the next meal.
Around 4pm Radhika came back to start cooking. Today we were having chicken and lemongrass on a local spinach leaf for appetizers, South Indian curried chicken for the main, and tropical custard pie for dessert.
We ate on the deck watching the sunset over the bay. It was all very peaceful and quite a different scene from the previous three years :)
Wednesday, November 09, 2022
Nadi, Fiji
We got up to watch the sunrise again (around 5am) and then nodded off for a bit, before getting up to finish packing.
Went down for breakfast at 7:30am so we could catch the other folks we’d met and exchange contact info. Usually we just say bye to people we meet traveling but we met a few folks here that we’d like to stay in contact with.
Heather and I were the only departing guests so we had the boat to ourselves. The staff gathered round to sing the traditional goodbye, and then we waded from shore to the boat, and we were off at 9:30am.
The sea was choppy today my friends, maybe not as angry as an old man trying to send back soup in a deli *, but still pretty bumpy. However our boat driver was very good so it didn’t feel too bad.
* Seinfeld reference
We arrived at the airport in Vunisea just after 11am. Waded to shore then switched to our land footwear.
Chatted with another passenger while waiting for our plane. He’s filming a documentary of the volcanic eruption in Tonga earlier this year. It’s picked up by PBS in the US but he wasn’t sure of the Canadian distribution rights. Maybe it’ll appear at Hot Docs.
The flight wasn’t too bad considering the warning from the copilot about turbulence. I think I slept for most of it.
We got our bags (the domestic terminal at Nadi is large enough to have a conveyor belt) and then tried to figure out which group of parked taxis was actually the taxi stand. The drivers recognized our confusion and the next in line drove up to pick us up. It’s a flat rate of 40 FJD to Doubletree, cheaper than the hotel taxi rate of 65 FJD.
It was nice to return to the Doubletree and have the staff remember our names! It’s quite amazing given the number of guests they meet.
Luckily we were able to get early check-in cause I was beat. Not sure if it was all the activities the past few days or the bumpy boat ride, but for whatever reason I was exhausted.
Eventually we made it down for dinner. We’ve been sticking to the à la carte dining option, which here is on the beach. It started raining after we ordered so moved to the main dining area. I had the braised beef rib which was ginormous, enough for a family of four. Crashed early around 9pm.
Tuesday, November 08, 2022
Ono Island, Fiji
We had a relaxing breakfast at Oneta and then got ourselves ready for the ridge walk. The past three days had been filled with water activities morning and afternoon. We wanted a more relaxing day, after all we were on vacation :)
At 5pm we all met down at the dock for the sunset cruise and bird tour of Yabu Island. At dusk various sea-birds, including frigates, boobies, shearwaters and petrels all come to Yabu Island to nest for the night.
The Oneta property is bounded by ridges on three sides (and the ocean on the fourth). The ridge walk forks at the one hour mark, with the option to return straight down to the resort, or carry on for the full circumnavigation of the property. The last bit is on the beach and needs to be timed for low tide.
We weren’t sure how much get-up-and-go we’d have so deferred the decision to the fork.
The path is well-marked and you don’t need a guide but Oneta has someone accompany guests on all activities, with water, tea, biscuits and chips.
Our guide was George, who’d also been our snorkeling guide the past few days.
It actually turned out better with a guide, as George pointed out various types of trees and their uses. For example, when working in the bush, bats are a common food, barbecued. (Very bony like pigeon or rabbit, a lot of effort to eat). The bats like the fruit of particular tree (which is locally called a ‘bat tree’), and so to catch a bat they hang around the tree.
Anyways the walk was quite enjoyable, with a nice breeze along the top of the ridge. There’s also good views of the surrounding islands and the Astrolabe Reef.
At the fork we decided to do the full tour.
The downhills were a bit challenging, a 45* slope down loose gravel. At least it hadn’t rained recently - otherwise we would have slid downhill several metres in places.
George also related that the Oneta staff go on occasional garbage cleaning trips to the surrounding beaches, which is why the beaches look so pristine. This came up after I mistook a yellow crawling plant for discarded fishing net :)
We reached back down to the beach and walked back to the resort. It took exactly 2.5 hours as advertised; although if we just walked it straight it’s probably 1.5 hours. But the stories and history were really interesting.
Showered and then headed down for lunch, Thai beef noodles, excellent on a hot day.
We had the afternoon off, so relaxed and watched the ocean. At some point we started packing up, tomorrow we had our journey back to Nadi.
The guests all went in one boat, accompanied by a second boat with resort staff who played guitar and sang traditional songs as the sun set. We had one or two sundowners, listened to the music and watched the birds. Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud cover on the horizon so no colour in the sunset. I tried to get pics of the birds, but it turns out a high zoom at low light from a boat isn’t ideal. Who knew? Anyways the whole experience was really fun.
Chatted with everyone over dinner, and then waited up for the lunar eclipse. It was at a decent hour in this part of the world - totality was between 10:16pm - 11:41pm. There was a slight hazy cloud cover earlier but over the window we did get some clear views and nice pics.
So it was a nice finale to our time at Oneta :)
Sunday, November 06, 2022
Ono Island, Fiji
A slightly different agenda today. Started with checking for mantas. There were a couple mantas, but they quickly skittered off after we got in the water.
We snorkeled at the northern end of the Astrolabe, based on the weather. It took a bit longer to get there, about 30 minutes, compared to the 10 minute closeness of the other sites.
Had a snack at Namara Island and then another snorkel. We had worn 3/4 wetsuits (we were in colder water today) and it made a huge difference in comfort.
Went to another snorkel site, and then we went to Yabu Island, an island close to the resort for tatavu, a traditional fish barbecue on the beach.
The freshly caught fish are grilled over coals, and then served in a banana leaf or large shell, with roasted sweet potato and bananas, and freshly squeezed lime / sea water / optional chilies sauce. It was delicious.
After lunch we had another look for the mantas, but no luck. Just as well cause I was beat, although I was hoping we’d see them cause Chris / Yvong / Marie hadn’t had a good view of them yet.
I had a massage booked for 4pm, so rushed to soak our watersports laundry (they were really starting to stink), shower and head over. The massage room was open on one side to the ocean. I realized that we had paddle boarded right past here the other day, oblivious to whole thing.
Rushed back to finish the laundry before the dinner drum sounded. At this point Heather and I agreed that we had been trying to pack too much into our days. So figured tomorrow we would just take it easy, maybe do the ridge walk around the property in the morning and then relax in the afternoon.
Dinner was excellent again. Found out the Martin in the owners, Martin and Liz, is actually Martin Hilton, executive producer of The Bachelor series. The resort looks to be a passion project for them. Supposedly they keep the website outdated to keep demand low, although I’m not sure if that was Richard (the manager) joking around.
Also found out from Chris and Yvong that in NZ, at a four-way stop, the people going straight have the right-of-way. This is very good to know for when we get to NZ!
We snorkeled at the northern end of the Astrolabe, based on the weather. It took a bit longer to get there, about 30 minutes, compared to the 10 minute closeness of the other sites.
Had a snack at Namara Island and then another snorkel. We had worn 3/4 wetsuits (we were in colder water today) and it made a huge difference in comfort.
Went to another snorkel site, and then we went to Yabu Island, an island close to the resort for tatavu, a traditional fish barbecue on the beach.
The freshly caught fish are grilled over coals, and then served in a banana leaf or large shell, with roasted sweet potato and bananas, and freshly squeezed lime / sea water / optional chilies sauce. It was delicious.
After lunch we had another look for the mantas, but no luck. Just as well cause I was beat, although I was hoping we’d see them cause Chris / Yvong / Marie hadn’t had a good view of them yet.
I had a massage booked for 4pm, so rushed to soak our watersports laundry (they were really starting to stink), shower and head over. The massage room was open on one side to the ocean. I realized that we had paddle boarded right past here the other day, oblivious to whole thing.
Rushed back to finish the laundry before the dinner drum sounded. At this point Heather and I agreed that we had been trying to pack too much into our days. So figured tomorrow we would just take it easy, maybe do the ridge walk around the property in the morning and then relax in the afternoon.
Dinner was excellent again. Found out the Martin in the owners, Martin and Liz, is actually Martin Hilton, executive producer of The Bachelor series. The resort looks to be a passion project for them. Supposedly they keep the website outdated to keep demand low, although I’m not sure if that was Richard (the manager) joking around.
Also found out from Chris and Yvong that in NZ, at a four-way stop, the people going straight have the right-of-way. This is very good to know for when we get to NZ!
Saturday, November 05, 2022
Ono Island, Fiji
Another day of snorkeling :) First we stopped by the cleaning station off Vurolevu Island, even though it was low tide and less likely that they’d be there.
We were in luck! From the boat we could see a large reef manta ray, about 4m across, slowly circling near the surface. We got our gear on quickly and dropped into the water.
It was amazing to see the manta circling around majestically. It swam at a 90* angle, pretty close to us, within 2-3m. Another manta joined us for a few minutes before it dived down to the deep. I got some great pics, and then our snorkeling guide took my camera to get pics of us swimming with the manta. We watched it for about 30 minutes.
We got back on the boat and went off to our snorkeling sites. First was Split Rock, which as the name suggests is a wall on both sides. It’s also a preferred dive site. We are remote enough though that it’s just our resort we saw operating the whole time here.
The next part will sound repetitive - a quick snack on another random beach, a 2nd snorkeling site, back to the resort for lunch.
After lunch we had a new activity - kayaking through the mangroves to a small waterfall. I had pictured a long winding waterway like Akaka at Loango. But this was about 30 minutes through some choppy waters hugging the coast of Ono Island, before finally reaching the mangrove river, and then about five minutes down the river. We spent a few minutes at the waterfall before heading back down river. We opted to take the “Uber” back (a resort boat).
Cleaned up, had a nice dinner. There were a few new guests that arrived today - Chris and Yvong (sp?) (US, living the past year on the South Island of NZ), and their daughter Marie. Also a French guy, Thierry (sp?) living in Chile.
We were in luck! From the boat we could see a large reef manta ray, about 4m across, slowly circling near the surface. We got our gear on quickly and dropped into the water.
It was amazing to see the manta circling around majestically. It swam at a 90* angle, pretty close to us, within 2-3m. Another manta joined us for a few minutes before it dived down to the deep. I got some great pics, and then our snorkeling guide took my camera to get pics of us swimming with the manta. We watched it for about 30 minutes.
We got back on the boat and went off to our snorkeling sites. First was Split Rock, which as the name suggests is a wall on both sides. It’s also a preferred dive site. We are remote enough though that it’s just our resort we saw operating the whole time here.
The next part will sound repetitive - a quick snack on another random beach, a 2nd snorkeling site, back to the resort for lunch.
After lunch we had a new activity - kayaking through the mangroves to a small waterfall. I had pictured a long winding waterway like Akaka at Loango. But this was about 30 minutes through some choppy waters hugging the coast of Ono Island, before finally reaching the mangrove river, and then about five minutes down the river. We spent a few minutes at the waterfall before heading back down river. We opted to take the “Uber” back (a resort boat).
Cleaned up, had a nice dinner. There were a few new guests that arrived today - Chris and Yvong (sp?) (US, living the past year on the South Island of NZ), and their daughter Marie. Also a French guy, Thierry (sp?) living in Chile.
Ono Island, Fiji
We were up at 5:00ish, much earlier than our 6:45am alarm. Watched the sky change colour and listened to the birds. Got ourselves together, planned out our snorkeling clothes, and then headed down early for the 7:30 breakfast (mostly for the wifi). Stefanie and Clint also had the same idea and so we ended up chatting instead of being on our phones (I did manage to do my Wordle though).
Breakfast was great, including French press coffee. Stefanie and Clint are here for the diving, so it was just me and Heather plus two snorkel guides and a boat driver on our activity.
First we swung by the cleaning station off Vurolevu Island, about 5-10 minutes from the resort, to see if the manta rays were there. No mantas today :( so we carried on to our first snorkel site on the Astrolabe Reef, about another ten minutes. The water is really smooth here cause of the protection from the reef, one of the largest on the world. (They say the 4th largest at the resort but google says differently. Either way, it’s still very impressive).
And then we were snorkeling! The snorkel site was shallow which is great for pics. Saw lots of colourful fishes and coral. In particular the blue fish, yellow fish and purple coral really pop.
It was partially cloudy and so we were a bit cold by the end of the 45 minute snorkel.
Had a coffee break at a random pristine beach on a small nearby island, and back to the Astrolabe for more snorkeling. This site, also shallow, was one of our favourites. The sun stayed out which made for great pics and also kept us warm. We both thought it was a shorter snorkel but turned out to be 80 minutes!
We went by the cleaning station on the way home, but still no mantas. Maybe tomorrow! Although at this point, everything had been so amazing here between the resort and the snorkeling, that the mantas would just be a bonus.
We had just enough time to shower before we heard the drums announcing lunch. Lunch was delicious, a shrimp stir fry with rice.
We had a couple hours before sunset and so tried out the stand-up paddle boards. The water was smooth for boating but still choppy enough that maybe we should have waited for a calmer time or area. Anyways we both fell off our boards once to start and then again after about 30 minutes. Heather unfortunately banged her ankle on the board when falling.
We showered again and then went down for a drink before dinner. Turns out Stefanie is an ER nurse and so was able to help out with Heather’s ankle (basically keeping down inflammation).
We were joined by a couple more people today, Bill (UK) and Bibeka (sp?) (Denmark) who were island hopping on an organized kayak tour around Kadavu.
Dinner was excellent again. Went through plans for tomorrow (mantas and snorkeling in the morning, and then kayaking through the mangroves to a small waterfall in the afternoon).
Breakfast was great, including French press coffee. Stefanie and Clint are here for the diving, so it was just me and Heather plus two snorkel guides and a boat driver on our activity.
First we swung by the cleaning station off Vurolevu Island, about 5-10 minutes from the resort, to see if the manta rays were there. No mantas today :( so we carried on to our first snorkel site on the Astrolabe Reef, about another ten minutes. The water is really smooth here cause of the protection from the reef, one of the largest on the world. (They say the 4th largest at the resort but google says differently. Either way, it’s still very impressive).
And then we were snorkeling! The snorkel site was shallow which is great for pics. Saw lots of colourful fishes and coral. In particular the blue fish, yellow fish and purple coral really pop.
It was partially cloudy and so we were a bit cold by the end of the 45 minute snorkel.
Had a coffee break at a random pristine beach on a small nearby island, and back to the Astrolabe for more snorkeling. This site, also shallow, was one of our favourites. The sun stayed out which made for great pics and also kept us warm. We both thought it was a shorter snorkel but turned out to be 80 minutes!
We went by the cleaning station on the way home, but still no mantas. Maybe tomorrow! Although at this point, everything had been so amazing here between the resort and the snorkeling, that the mantas would just be a bonus.
We had just enough time to shower before we heard the drums announcing lunch. Lunch was delicious, a shrimp stir fry with rice.
We had a couple hours before sunset and so tried out the stand-up paddle boards. The water was smooth for boating but still choppy enough that maybe we should have waited for a calmer time or area. Anyways we both fell off our boards once to start and then again after about 30 minutes. Heather unfortunately banged her ankle on the board when falling.
We showered again and then went down for a drink before dinner. Turns out Stefanie is an ER nurse and so was able to help out with Heather’s ankle (basically keeping down inflammation).
We were joined by a couple more people today, Bill (UK) and Bibeka (sp?) (Denmark) who were island hopping on an organized kayak tour around Kadavu.
Dinner was excellent again. Went through plans for tomorrow (mantas and snorkeling in the morning, and then kayaking through the mangroves to a small waterfall in the afternoon).
Friday, November 04, 2022
Ono Island, Fiji
Transit day to Ono Island!
We were up early at 5:30am (although part of that was jetlag) to finish our packing, have breakfast, checkout, and take a taxi through morning rush hour to the airport.
The domestic terminal is rather small with only six check-in counters. We had about 90 minutes to our flight and used the airport wifi to catch up on news and post to our blog.
Finally time to board! It was a twin prop seating about 18, about 2/3rds full. We saw Heather’s suitcase in the luggage compartment as we boarded. The co-pilot gave the safety spiel in person (no intercom) and then we were off.
We flew over Nadi Town before turning south to Kadavu. It was a super smooth 45 minute flight. The greens and blues of the reefs and ocean were amazing, the journey here really is part of the experience.
We touched down, went about half way down the runway that spanned the island before taxiing back to the terminal.
Watched the luggage guy unload the plane (took him two loads on his cart) and then met up with the Oneta folks. There were a couple other passengers on the flight also staying at Oneta, Stefanie and Clint (both from the US).
We waded out to the boat, navigated the coral near shore and then sped off east to Ono Island, following the coast. There’s not many roads in Kadavu, the main form of transport is boat. We passed by pristine beaches with palm trees and volcanic boulders, picture perfect. We were lucky with the weather, almost zero wind which made for a very smooth boat ride (being inside the Astrolabe Reef also helped).
Stopped at a random beach and had a yummy lunch under a dilo tree.
Another hour in the boat and we arrived at Oneta. The staff serenaded us as we approached (everyone here has beautiful voices). Had a fresh coconut while Richard (the manager) gave his spiel.
Based on pics on Oneta’s website and visitor pics on tripadvisor I was expecting the place to be a bit rustic. It’s the exact opposite. It was mostly rebuilt from scratch after the cyclone in 2020, and now looks amazing. The manager, Richard, said the owners don’t want the place getting too popular so they just have these old pics still on their website.
Our bure is up a few dozen stairs, with an amazing view of the nearby islands and the Astrolabe Reef in the distance. The resort is on the east side of Ono Island so we’ll get great sunrises. The entire resort is connected by raised boardwalks, so barefeet is fine.
We had time for a quick snorkel in the house reef to test out our gear (we had bought snorkel masks and fins). There wasn’t much to see (the cyclone wiped out most of their coral) but it was rather refreshing.
Showered and then headed down for a drink before dinner. By ‘shower’ I mean an outdoor shower surrounded by beautiful tropical plants, including two banana trees with actual bananas. It’s one of the nicest outdoor showers I’ve seen.
The main dining area catches the breeze coming off the ocean and is really pleasant, even in the heat.
It turned out that we (me & Heather, plus Stefanie and Clint) were the only guests that night. (The resort can handle up to 18 guests). There’s some more guests arriving over the next few days.
Dinner was excellent. After dinner, Richard went through his suggested activities for the next day (manta rays and then two snorkel sites). We were all tired from the journey here and so we turned in early, around 8:30pm.
We were up early at 5:30am (although part of that was jetlag) to finish our packing, have breakfast, checkout, and take a taxi through morning rush hour to the airport.
The domestic terminal is rather small with only six check-in counters. We had about 90 minutes to our flight and used the airport wifi to catch up on news and post to our blog.
Finally time to board! It was a twin prop seating about 18, about 2/3rds full. We saw Heather’s suitcase in the luggage compartment as we boarded. The co-pilot gave the safety spiel in person (no intercom) and then we were off.
We flew over Nadi Town before turning south to Kadavu. It was a super smooth 45 minute flight. The greens and blues of the reefs and ocean were amazing, the journey here really is part of the experience.
We touched down, went about half way down the runway that spanned the island before taxiing back to the terminal.
Watched the luggage guy unload the plane (took him two loads on his cart) and then met up with the Oneta folks. There were a couple other passengers on the flight also staying at Oneta, Stefanie and Clint (both from the US).
We waded out to the boat, navigated the coral near shore and then sped off east to Ono Island, following the coast. There’s not many roads in Kadavu, the main form of transport is boat. We passed by pristine beaches with palm trees and volcanic boulders, picture perfect. We were lucky with the weather, almost zero wind which made for a very smooth boat ride (being inside the Astrolabe Reef also helped).
Stopped at a random beach and had a yummy lunch under a dilo tree.
Another hour in the boat and we arrived at Oneta. The staff serenaded us as we approached (everyone here has beautiful voices). Had a fresh coconut while Richard (the manager) gave his spiel.
Based on pics on Oneta’s website and visitor pics on tripadvisor I was expecting the place to be a bit rustic. It’s the exact opposite. It was mostly rebuilt from scratch after the cyclone in 2020, and now looks amazing. The manager, Richard, said the owners don’t want the place getting too popular so they just have these old pics still on their website.
Our bure is up a few dozen stairs, with an amazing view of the nearby islands and the Astrolabe Reef in the distance. The resort is on the east side of Ono Island so we’ll get great sunrises. The entire resort is connected by raised boardwalks, so barefeet is fine.
We had time for a quick snorkel in the house reef to test out our gear (we had bought snorkel masks and fins). There wasn’t much to see (the cyclone wiped out most of their coral) but it was rather refreshing.
Showered and then headed down for a drink before dinner. By ‘shower’ I mean an outdoor shower surrounded by beautiful tropical plants, including two banana trees with actual bananas. It’s one of the nicest outdoor showers I’ve seen.
The main dining area catches the breeze coming off the ocean and is really pleasant, even in the heat.
It turned out that we (me & Heather, plus Stefanie and Clint) were the only guests that night. (The resort can handle up to 18 guests). There’s some more guests arriving over the next few days.
Dinner was excellent. After dinner, Richard went through his suggested activities for the next day (manta rays and then two snorkel sites). We were all tired from the journey here and so we turned in early, around 8:30pm.
Wednesday, November 02, 2022
Nadi, Fiji
Spent yesterday doing nothing and that’s about as long as we can do nothing :)
So today we had a small excursion into Nadi Town to see Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami Temple and then the food market. Took us a while to get our day packs together, we’re a little out of practice.
We took the ferry back to the mainland and took a hotel taxi to the temple, about fifteen minutes.
It’s FJD 5 to enter (about CAD 3), they grumbled about having to make change for my FJD 100 bill (that’s all the ATM gave us). Used the change to pay our taxi driver.
Shoes and hats are not allowed. Heather got a sarong to wear over her pants. Pics were allowed from the outside but not inside, however it’s all open air so even outside pics give a good idea of the temple.
Walked around clockwise. We arrived during daily puja and were lucky to witness devotees walking around the temple with their offerings.
The temple was very colourful, similar to the Hindu temples we saw in Sri Lanka.
Next we walked into Nadi Town to check out the food market, about 500m down the main street. There were several touts on the street; the temple and market are a common day trip from the resorts nearby.
The market was excellent, one of our favourites. Yesterday on our drive from the airport we had seen the trucks coming in from the interior filled with fresh produce. We recognized a lot the fruit and vegetables from our lunches and dinners. The vendors were very helpful with the stuff we didn’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it, but this is one of the first trips we’ve taken where English is an official language the whole trip. (Fiji has three: English, Fijian and Fiji Hindi, with English as the lingua franca).
Tried some kava from a market stall. Kava root is ground to a powder and then mixed with room temperature water. It’s a popular drink in Fiji, used for relaxing. It’s a reverse tolerance drink (new users need to drink more to feel effects). We just had a small amount to taste, to me it’s okay flavour-wise but I’ll just stick to Fiji Bitters (the local beer).
That was it for our little half-day of exploring. It was fun to finally be out and about while traveling. It was still too early for lunch in town so just took a metered taxi back to the hotel (about half the cost of the hotel-organized taxi).
Spent the afternoon reorganizing our packs for the next leg of our trip, five nights on Ono Island. We’re taking our big suitcases and leaving our backpacks and carry on suitcases at the hotel.
(You have to check out the satellite view of Vunisea Airport on Kadavu. The airport literally goes from shore to shore).
We will have wifi access from Oneta Resort so I’ll be able to post blog updates, hopefully a pic of us seeing giant manta rays :)
So today we had a small excursion into Nadi Town to see Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami Temple and then the food market. Took us a while to get our day packs together, we’re a little out of practice.
We took the ferry back to the mainland and took a hotel taxi to the temple, about fifteen minutes.
It’s FJD 5 to enter (about CAD 3), they grumbled about having to make change for my FJD 100 bill (that’s all the ATM gave us). Used the change to pay our taxi driver.
Shoes and hats are not allowed. Heather got a sarong to wear over her pants. Pics were allowed from the outside but not inside, however it’s all open air so even outside pics give a good idea of the temple.
Walked around clockwise. We arrived during daily puja and were lucky to witness devotees walking around the temple with their offerings.
The temple was very colourful, similar to the Hindu temples we saw in Sri Lanka.
Next we walked into Nadi Town to check out the food market, about 500m down the main street. There were several touts on the street; the temple and market are a common day trip from the resorts nearby.
The market was excellent, one of our favourites. Yesterday on our drive from the airport we had seen the trucks coming in from the interior filled with fresh produce. We recognized a lot the fruit and vegetables from our lunches and dinners. The vendors were very helpful with the stuff we didn’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it, but this is one of the first trips we’ve taken where English is an official language the whole trip. (Fiji has three: English, Fijian and Fiji Hindi, with English as the lingua franca).
Tried some kava from a market stall. Kava root is ground to a powder and then mixed with room temperature water. It’s a popular drink in Fiji, used for relaxing. It’s a reverse tolerance drink (new users need to drink more to feel effects). We just had a small amount to taste, to me it’s okay flavour-wise but I’ll just stick to Fiji Bitters (the local beer).
That was it for our little half-day of exploring. It was fun to finally be out and about while traveling. It was still too early for lunch in town so just took a metered taxi back to the hotel (about half the cost of the hotel-organized taxi).
Spent the afternoon reorganizing our packs for the next leg of our trip, five nights on Ono Island. We’re taking our big suitcases and leaving our backpacks and carry on suitcases at the hotel.
(You have to check out the satellite view of Vunisea Airport on Kadavu. The airport literally goes from shore to shore).
We will have wifi access from Oneta Resort so I’ll be able to post blog updates, hopefully a pic of us seeing giant manta rays :)
Tuesday, November 01, 2022
Nadi, Fiji
Packing for this trip was really packing for two different trips - Fiji, where it will be 30C and humid, with lots of water activities; and NZ where it will be 8C-20C and more urban focused, with art galleries and fancy-ish dinners, as well as cool weather hikes.
We are taking both our suitcases and backpacks, and then using our hotel in Fiji as a hub, leaving what we don’t need for a particular leg in left luggage. So really it’s just the flight from Toronto to Nadi that we look like we've packed all our earthly belongings.
We had looked into shipping luggage ahead, what with all the news over the summer about Pearson being the worst airport for lost or delayed luggage. The forward luggage service was a bit pricy plus also a two week lead time, so we just risked it. To keep calm, we optimized our carry-on for what we’d need in Fiji (haha). We also bought our own snorkeling gear (a post-covid change) which turns out is very bulky to pack.
We had looked into shipping luggage ahead, what with all the news over the summer about Pearson being the worst airport for lost or delayed luggage. The forward luggage service was a bit pricy plus also a two week lead time, so we just risked it. To keep calm, we optimized our carry-on for what we’d need in Fiji (haha). We also bought our own snorkeling gear (a post-covid change) which turns out is very bulky to pack.
We piled into a taxi, feeling quite foolish with our eight pieces of luggage, and officially started our trip at 1:20pm Sunday.
It was one of the fastest rides through downtown I’ve ever had midday. Checked in no problems. I was surprised Air Canada didn’t ask to see our proof of immunization and covid insurance, which is the current entry requirement for Fiji.
The US Border Security person was one of the friendliest US border officials I’ve encountered. She flipped through our passports, and then asked if we have the same stylist (we both have curly hair). It was like getting a question you didn’t prep for for a job interview.
The last time we crossed an international border was pre-covid, in January 2020. The two years and ten months is the longest consecutive time I’ve stayed in Canada ever in my life.
For some reason I’ve always pictured Los Angeles as a three hour flight, but it’s closer to six. (I think I associate time zone difference with flight time). Watched the latest Minions (okay) and Top Gun Maverick (great airplane movie, even on the small screen).
We had four hours in LAX between flights, and used most of that walking from T6 to TB. Saw that our luggage had indeed made it to LA with us (we had bought AirTags, see lost luggage reference above). Got paged over the airport intercom to go our gate and show our Fijian paperwork that Air Canada didn’t check.
Our flight to Nadi was an uneventful eleven hours. There were slim pickings for in-flight movies on Fiji Airlines. I did watch the The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent which I really liked. Due to the gerrymandered International Date Line, we actually crossed the date line five times! No wonder my internal clock was all messed up, lol.
We arrived in Nadi around 6:30am, and then set a record from touching down to exiting the airport. Our four checked bags were in the first six around the conveyor belt; they had almost disappeared for another round by the time we saw them. To my disappointment, we didn’t even have time to open the Follow Me app and see where our luggage was :(
Got Fijian dollars from the ATM no problems and then our driver whisked us away to the hotel.
The hotel is a short 100m ferry ride across a channel, and we were finally at our destination, 26 hours door to door. Luckily we were able to get early checkin cause we were really jet lagged and needed to change out of our Toronto fall weather clothes.
Spent most of the day acclimatizing to the heat, humidity and time zone. The food is excellent, we’ve tried mostly local fish dishes. Typically all-inclusive resorts aren’t our thing, but on this trip we planned three days to de-jetlag (and allow any lost luggage to catch up). We have enjoyed the doing nothing :)
Fiji is country 95 for me, for those counting (Gerry, Tanya).
We leave for Ono Island via Kadavu on Friday, so until then won’t have much to write of interest, unless you like reading about what we had for dinner.
Monday, October 10, 2022
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.
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 :)
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 :)
Monday, January 06, 2020
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:
* 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!
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!
Saturday, January 04, 2020
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:
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.
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.
Friday, January 03, 2020
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.
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.
Thursday, January 02, 2020
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 01, 2020
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
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!
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!
Monday, December 30, 2019
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.
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.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
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!
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!
Saturday, December 28, 2019
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!
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!
Friday, December 27, 2019
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.
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.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
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!
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!
Monday, December 23, 2019
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.
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.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
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!
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!
Saturday, December 21, 2019
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!
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!
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