ALBANIA DAY 6. December 20, 2017

Greetings from Central Albania – Berat

I’m sitting in our room at the moment relaxing after a very very hectic and physical day… and listening to the call for prayer at the local mosque, which is practically outside our door. When you research Albania you learn that the population is 65% Muslim (although a very secular kind of Muslim since there is no evidence in dress). But we learned from various people we’ve been meeting with that data is very very inaccurate and that the majority of the population is actually atheist.

Since we are the only guests at Residenza Desaret (Berat), we were naturally the only people at breakfast (which was on par with the dinner last night).. We had corn flakes and bananas and eggs (bland)… and then off we went – First to find a map of Berat (always good to get an overview of the town. But no luck.. then we started to climb a narrow cobblestone street that we thought led up to the castle.. but alas after asking a few people (no English spoken in Berat), we found out we were climbing the wrong street so we about faced and went up the adjacent street.. up and up and up… all cobblestone – much of it worn over the centuries, but in pretty good shape. We climbed about 650 feet (65 story building) to get to the top.. sort of grueling but not as bad as climbing to the top of the Portola Palace in Tibet (but that was at 12,000 ft. above sea level).

We carefully traced the GPS route and found ourselves on narrower and narrower cobblestone pathways of stone stairs  heading up hill and making hairpin turns. Eventually after climbing about 40 feet in a rather circuitous manner we found ourselves at Lili’s – which is really Lili’s house (Illia is his real name). His family has lived on the same property for more than 250 years and he did work in computers up until a few years ago. Now he’s a restauranteur. He added a tiny space to the back of his house (sort of an open-air shed about 10’ x 10’ with three tables). In summer he has enough room just outside of this space for 2 more tables. He’s fashioned this tiny space with handmade (by him) tables all made out of recycled materials that he foraged – some of which is hundreds of years old wood, including the shed which is precariously cobbled together. His wife cooks in the kitchen in the house which is some 10 or 15 steps down from this area.. He is the congenial, talkative host.. and she cooks.. And his father makes the wine and the raki.

Naturally we were the only patrons, so Lili spent a lot of time talking to us – politics (he likes this government), food, and his business. We ordered three dishes (definitely one too many) – something he called dolma but was like a stuffed tomato with rice and herbs and surrounded by more rice – it was incredibly good; little aubergines stuffed with tomatoes and herbs; and a dish whose name I didn’t catch – which was ricotta cheese and a little bit of goat cheese mixed with tomatoes, herbs, garlic, and egg. All very very tasty. Naturally we also had his father’s wine.. followed by raki at the end of the meal.

We hiked down hill on the cobblestone steps (maybe we rolled down, we were so stuffed) and walked to cross the pedestrian bridge to the other side of town and then walked to the second pedestrian bridge (a more modern suspension bridge) to get back to the hotel.. According to the fitness app on the iPhone, we walked 5 miles (and of course the big climb)… Not aching yet, but we’ll see how we feel tomorrow.

The town’s main attraction is the old town – which includes hundreds of houses built into the hillside all painted white and all with vertical windows… It’s a wonderful site to behold on either side of the Osumo River. We are actually staying in that part of town.

We’re heading to dinner in a bit…  So I’ll give foodie details on that in tomorrow’s missive. We’re going to what is supposed to be the best restaurant in Berat.. We shall see.

All the best

Fern

PS – Turns out it was probably a good thing that the hotel didn’t have our reservation. I found the paperwork last night, and the price quoted when we made the reservation is twice what they told us last night when we came to check in…