Checking out of Montenegro – in to Albania

Monday morning and we left the small bay. My condition was not good, my stomach was really bad that morning, so I went to sleep almost stright away we left the bay. We had a plan to go to Ulcinj to check out, but we made a stop already in Bar, and Astor went ashore to check out.

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From Bar we sailed to Durres to check in to Albania. We had a beautiful gennaker sailing all the way with a max speed of 11,3 knots.

Durres

In Albania you need to have an agent to do check in prosedure. You can call them before arrival, or they will meet you in the marina. We paid 50 EUR for the agent, and 50 EUR to check in.

After we had checked in Astor wanted to find a bycycle repair to fix one of our bycycles. I stayed in the boat while he went ashore.

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I tried to explane him it was difficult to find the right way, and when he came back, he agree with that. You need to find this bridge to come over the main road, but it is really hard to get out of the terminal area…

A lot of thunder and lightning up in the mountain that evening – too

Later in the evening it was nice colours

Tuesday we relaxed in the boat and finally we put up the logo on the boom. We still don`t know where the Instagram and Facebook logos are, but they are in the boat, so we will find them one day we are cleaning.

I bought a new dress in Trogir, I love this colour! We had a “date” with a previous collegue of mine that evening. The marina is not far from the town but my knee is still not good for walking that much, so we order a taxi.

Sorry for this absolutely red photo! But the walls in the restaurant Westwood Meathouse have that colour, and I guess it did`nt help that I wear a red dress 🙂 As I said, Thor Harald worked at the main office in the same travel agency where I worked 15 years ago. Every time we had some problem with the computers we called Thor Harald, and he helped us out. It was really nice to see him again and we had an amazing dinner here.

First we got this for free

And then this

Before the main course – delicious!! After dinner we got 2 different drinks for free. We paid around 8000 LEKE (680NOK) for all of this, for all three. Including wine! We deceided to share a taxi back, we had the boat on the way to Thor Haralds hotel. But the taxi driver did`nt speak english at all and let us believe that he knew where the marina was. He took us first to Thor Haralds hotel and wanted to drive further on. Then we had to stop him to tell him that he had to turn back to the town. He stopped a person who spoke english and we tried to explain him where we should go. When the driver came back to town we tried once again to explain him where to go. He stopped another person to ask, and then he understood… not… He took us longer than the marina again… Then we decided to call the agent in the marina and he explain the taxidriver where to go. It was an evening we should have understood a bit albanian, I am pritty sure it was some ugly words there…

The next day it was time to leave Durres. It is not a big marina in Durres, mostly for the people who shall check in and out of Albania. The big ferries going to Italy stays there too and make a noise the whole day. The harbour are a little bit to the right in the photo. We stay longside and there is electricity and water.

Vlore

We decided to have the next stop in Vlore. On the way it was dark clouds and thunder and lightning coming against us so we started motorsailing to sail around the weather, and we manage that.

In the morning we went to town to have a look and do some shopping.

We started to have lunch at a restaurant, and I had this “Italy” pizza.

Vlore is a nice town, but I had still problem to walk to far so we had only a couple of hours there before we went back to the boat.

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In Vlore we anchored and it was very rolly…

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It was time to move on and again it was a nice gennakersailing

Porto Palermo

We wanted to have a stop in Porto Palmermo again, because it is not that many places in Albania which is that quiet (not open to the ocean)

More boats this time so we had to moor at the end of the quay. But that was okay.

When we came it was also big boats on the other side of the quay.

Last time we were here we tried to go to Ali Pashas castle, but we did`nt had cash to pay for the ticket. So no we decided to go there. And I am so happy we did. It was amazing! The guide books says that this castle was build of Ali Pasha in the beginning of 1800. But it has been people in this bay since 5th century BC so we don`t know everything about this. You can google Ali Pasha yourselves if you are interested, it is a lot of history, he was a big ruler in south of Albania and north in Greece, so you can find castles many places.

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The view from the castle are amazing!

Here is Felizia

taking photos

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Here is the bay seen from the castle. On the other side of the road there is a restaurant and cabins/rooms you can rent. We had dinner there after walking around at the castle. The castle sits almost on an island, only connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land, with beach on both sides.

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Huffington Post ranked Porto Palermos first among 15 undescovered European destinations in 2014.

Well worth a visit! It costs only 2 EUR to go inside. Before covid they normally had 1000 visitors each day, now it is only around 200…

I had to ask what this was for. It is for the cat who lives there, taking care of the mice in/around the castle!

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A nice and cheap dinner at the restaurant before heading back to the boat!

Next time we will check out of Albania and go to Greece, where we have plans to stay for 3 months!