And, it was a beautiful blue sky day!
It's quite a lot of driving though, on a twisty, windy road. And although the road is paved, it's not in very good condition so it's pretty slow going.
Our first canyon viewpoint.
Ruth and Helen enjoying the view.
The canyon runs for 13 kms (8 miles).
We stopped at this bridge to have another look.
At the next stop, we put on our hiking boots and Tony and I went for a hike on the opposite side to try and get a different view...
You walk along this natural rock path.
Scenery along the way.
Tony.
Looking back at the small bridge we crossed over the canyon.
Looking back at Helen and Ruth.
Zoomed in.
Smile ladies!
Looking down.
The girls, thinking about if they want to cross the sketchy bridge or not.
They did cross the bridge, but not much further. The path was pretty rough going. Tony and I kept going to see if we could get a good view up the other side of the canyon.
Me!
Looking downriver.
Did I mention it was a beautiful day?
Scenery along the way.
Tony.
Osumi Canyon.
Can you see Tony?
Zoomed in.
Looking up river.
Just a gorgeous area.
Me, on the trail.
Back in the car, we continued south to a bridge viewpoint.
Tony.
So much hiking in this area. We could spend weeks exploring.
Another viewpoint on the way back.
I think we took too many photos...!
The Osumi River Valley as we head back to Berat.
Can you tell why we like this part of Albania? We could spend a lot of time here. In fact, Berat is one part of the world that we could definitely live. We're not ready for that yet though! There is too much exploring to be done.
Late afternoon we took a walk up to the Castle Park Hotel and Restaurant. This is a more upscale place by Albania standards, but it was Tony and Helen's last night with us, so we wanted to treat them.
Late afternoon sunshine in Berat.
Looking towards Tomorri Mountain.
Pedestrian Bridge in Berat.
Castle Park Hotel and Restaurant.
Homemade bread with local olives and goat butter and salce.
A selection of appetizers.
Roast local turkey.
Killed fresh that morning!
Oven roast vegetables.
And we had a big salad with goat cheese that I forgot to get a photo of.
There was too much food. I think we could have fed two more people! But, all delicious. With a liter of red wine and a couple of beers and a tip, the bill for the four of us was 10,650 lek ($123 CAD, $89 USD).
It's okay to splurge once in a while. :-)
Long driving day today as we are dropping Tony and Helen at Tirana airport, then driving into Kosovo.
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Nice deal on the popular Crock Pot Electric Lunchbox.
And in Canada...
Thanks for the two week trip around Albania again. I enjoyed following along . We'll possibly be back in March for 3 months of spring weather.
ReplyDeleteWe still may be back for a few days, it all depends on how we like Kosovo and if we find enough here to keep us busy before leaving Nov 5th.
DeleteThat is a lovely time to visit. Will you try going somewhere different when you come next spring?
Hi Kevin and Ruth, slightly off topic question. As I remember, when you purchased Max you were trying for some German status that allowed you to skirt Schengen limits. If this is an accurate memory, what happened to that?
ReplyDeleteYes, at the time of purchase one of our thoughts was to get a German residency permit. Technically, a residency permit in any Schengen zone country allows you to skirt the Schengen limits. However legally, that's not entirely true. How they could enforce it, we're not sure, but despite the open borders, laws do still exist. Our current thinking is a residency permit for Spain, since Spain is a large enough country that we could easily spend a full year or more there. The problem is that you need to apply in your home country, but we really don't want to come back to Canada while waiting for the application to be approved, which could take up to three months.
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