{"id":9785,"date":"2019-02-16T05:58:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T13:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/?p=9785"},"modified":"2019-11-10T07:59:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-10T15:59:08","slug":"driving-along-the-albanian-riviera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/16\/driving-along-the-albanian-riviera\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving along the Albanian Riviera."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heading out of Berat today for the southern coast of Albania. We haven&#8217;t seen salt water in a while and are excited to get a good sniff of the sea.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47112496161\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7901\/47112496161_9ab9054d98_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s more direct way to get to the sea but the locals convinced us that it wasn&#8217;t the wisest choice. Mud and crazy terrain, they said so we listened and took the longer way around.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47060182002\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7816\/47060182002_9a1c3fde7a_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span>Albania was an isolated Communist country up until 1990. The former ruler had hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers built in case of enemy attack. Eventually Communism fell, the leader died and the borders were open again. But these reminders of the past can still be seen around the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47060181782\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7866\/47060181782_d99a781ac3_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our last peek at the Adriatic Sea for a bit. Now it&#8217;s time to climb over a mountain and spy the Ionian Sea for our first time.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"46388818884\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7916\/46388818884_f6d8bd49d3_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What in the world?!?!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47112498641\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7901\/47112498641_655c0ac176_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Guess we climbed up a decent amount today.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"33237195648\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7915\/33237195648_8ef6a08e9f_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Kids were excited even with cold hands and feet.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47112498861\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7897\/47112498861_491c40b50d_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The road down to the southern coast was long, windy, beautiful and scattered with small bunkers.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47060176692\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7873\/47060176692_df881d8d68_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47112495471\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7910\/47112495471_89e25acec4_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hello, Ionian Sea!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"46198633795\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7865\/46198633795_8c128fabd8_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47060176942\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7926\/47060176942_cc04c1495a_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span>I love exploring old abandoned buildings but I hesitate to do so if anything seems too sketchy. My anxiety goes into overdrive when I see a steep narrow road or a no trespassing sign or drug paraphernalia on the ground. Must. Not. Break. Rules. But Dan doesn\u2019t give a crap. He parks right next to the building I was eyeing before I can even get a single curse word out of my mouth. Thanks,\u00a0<\/span>Dan.<span>\u00a0\u2764\ufe0f<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"46388820004\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7888\/46388820004_ebe50b9954_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47112496621\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7825\/47112496621_b6632fcf33_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"46198638825\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7919\/46198638825_50b7c4694a_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47060175932\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7872\/47060175932_a1dbfaf4b2_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Oh, please.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47060180432\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7901\/47060180432_4fb6705a68_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We try not to drive at night but it&#8217;s sometimes unavoidable with these slow roads.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"47060173812\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7812\/47060173812_619e9d915d_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I think I shrieked when we saw these red rocks. All we&#8217;ve been months of white stone. Reminded me of the southwest for a split second.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"46388818634\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7820\/46388818634_5f6d8df972_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Alright, time to find a camp spot&#8230; in the dark. Not the best but it&#8217;ll be fine.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"46198634035\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.static.flickr.com\/7810\/46198634035_8cf7755ec2_c.jpg\" alt=\"Driving along the Albanian Riviera blog\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Enjoy our vlog from the Albanian coast!<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bfpIVScmjZA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Thanks for following our adventures,<br \/>\nMarlene<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heading out of Berat today for the southern coast of Albania. We haven&#8217;t seen salt water in a while and are excited to get a good sniff of the sea. There&#8217;s more direct way to get to the sea but the locals convinced us that it wasn&#8217;t the wisest choice. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[215],"tags":[217],"class_list":["post-9785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-albania"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/47060175932_a1dbfaf4b2_c.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkBzA-2xP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}