Good news, bad news, and a dull grey day in Saranda, Albania

Well, lets get the bad news out of the way first. 

The entire province of Ontario just extended a four week stay at home order to six weeks, and instituted border controls between the provinces. This will last until May 20th, but it should not surprise anyone if it's extended. So to remove any doubt, the estate auction at Ruth's father's house originally planned for May 30th has been rescheduled to August 21st. 

So, we now have no real reason to come back to Canada until August and have put off any intention of doing so until then. Hopefully some sort of normalcy will have returned to Ontario by August, but I wouldn't bet on it.

On to the good news... our new motorhome is ready to go and all of the options that we asked for have been installed. The oven, the upgraded house batteries, the 200 watts of solar panels, the radio, and the bicycle rack. 

It is ready to go, as soon as Germany allows us in. 

Unfortunately, that might be sometime in June the way things are looking right now. All we can do is wait. Germany is supposed to provide an update on that tomorrow, but again, it's not looking good.

In the meantime, we are quite happy to finish out our three month maximum stay here in somewhat normal Albania. That will bring us to approximately June 15th, and if we can't get into Germany by then, we will continue exploring the Balkans by car and Airbnb. Kosovo is open to us, as is Montenegro, Croatia, and Serbia. 

Yesterday was a dull grey day, and it even spit with rain occasionally. Not enough to stop us from going out and doing a 9.5 km (5.9 mile) hike to a castle and a monastery.

Looking inland from the road leading up to Lekuresi Castle.

A ruined church (?) on the way up to the castle.

Another ruins looking across the Ionian Sea towards Corfu.

Lighthouse and the view back towards Saranda.

Looking south towards Greece.

Ruth, and another bunker.

Exploring ruins around the castle.

Interesting clouds.

Me, with some kind of military artillery.

Old paintings.

The original castle walls built in 1537 are still standing, but the interior has been modernized, with a restaurant and event center. There was hardly anybody around except for a few employees, and no entrance fee of any kind.

Interior of the castle.

View looking south.

Looking down on Saranda.

Ruth, giving some attention to a friendly cat.

Red poppy flowers.

We then made our way to the ruins of the Monastery of Forty Saints, located about 2.5 kms from the castle. This monastery, originally built in the 6th century, was a popular pilgrimage site for over 1,000 years. It fell into ruin in the 16th century, and was mostly destroyed during World War ll.

I poked the camera lens through some bars to get this shot.

This is what they think the monastery used to look like.

We made a detour to a butcher on the way back home and bought some meat to last us for another week. 4 big pork chops, a fairly large whole chicken, and a couple of pounds of ground beef. 

Pork chops for dinner!

Mmmm.

And no, we don't have any proper wine glasses here.

Speaking of "here", we haven't shown you our accommodation yet. It's just a basic apartment, nothing special...

Balcony.

Living room. Not very comfortable couches!

Ruth, inspecting the kitchen.

Bedroom.

Bathroom.

Those pictures were taken the day we arrived. It's pretty basic, but for $25 CAD ($20 USD) per night, it'll do for the one week we are here.

Today, the weather is about the same as yesterday. We are taking a drive south to Ksamil, close to the Greek border to see another popular summer beach area.

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