Shkoder - Day 1

 We arrived late on Sunday night into Tirana and stayed at an airport hotel. Tanner joined around 1:30 am. After breakfast at the hotel and a lengthy rental car/traffic experience, we made it back to the hotel to get the boys. 

We headed north to Shkoder - a city on the shores of Lake Shkoder and the border with Montenegro. Of course, it took us longer than we would have liked and we had to find money once we got to the city of 70,000, but we made it. We decided to grab food off the pedestrian mall and had one of the best meals of our trip. 

We then checked into our cute little hotel and relaxed/took naps before we headed out to explore the Rozafa Castle -  with sweeping views of the Albanian Alps and Lake Shkoder, it was a fun first outing. We then enjoyed happy hour at the patio at our hotel. While we were enjoying our drinks, the call for prayers went out - a first for all of us. Albanian was declared an atheist state in 1967 by the dictator at the time, but Muslim is the predominant religion due to years of Ottoman rule. 

We walked to a traditional Albanian food restaurant and ate out on their cute little courtyard. We then posted up on the pedestrian mall where every restaurant, cafe and bar had a TV out for the World Cup. I don't remember who was playing, but I will remember the experience fondly.  

NOTE: (given the way I have to upload pictures they are out of order) 

exploring Rozafa Castle

things you could not do in many countries 

happy hour while call for prayers (this picture captures a lot - the mosque, the old hotel, the crane for the building that is happening and the mountains in the background) 

Our cute little hotel courtyard 

our first shot of our many meals (we learned that we should do it BEFORE we eat)