Shkodër / Albania

We have arrived in Shkodër. After a long drive through Montenegro, we are finally in Albania. If you take the coastal road from Dubrovnik to Albania, you will drive along the most beautiful fjord in Southern Europe, called Kotor, located in Montenegro.

For the approximately 290km journey, you should take your time and enjoy it. You can't drive much faster because the entire coast is built up and the roads are narrow and crowded.

For impatient travelers, I recommend taking the highway through the mountains.

After crossing the Albanian border, we stopped at the nearest village to visit the Vodafone shop and get prepaid cards. The instructions for the cards were only in Albanian, but the staff was kind enough to activate them directly on our phones.

We spent the night at a beautiful campsite along Lake Shkodër and took a taxi to Shkodër this morning.

Once upon a time, Shkodër was the largest and most well-known city in Albania before Tirana became the capital. You can still feel the city's liveliness and energy. Trade and coffee drinking can be seen everywhere.

My husband's beard seems to be a big highlight for the Albanians. People were showing interest, whispering, and looking curious. It's hard to tell who is admiring whom or what more.

We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a clothing market in a narrow alley off the main street. Clothing was everywhere - on the door, above the door, on the walls, on tables, on the floor, on car roofs, and hoods. I wanted to buy a scarf to protect myself from the sun, so I looked around and found one. I met a very warm-hearted woman who was thrilled to learn that we were from Germany. We communicated more with gestures than with English. She proudly told me about her daughter who works in a hospital in Stuttgart. She kept caressing me and smiling. She said that Germany is wonderful for women because we are self-determined. Another woman joined us and explained that women in Albania still don't have a high status. They often suffer from domestic violence. Although there are women's movements now, gender equality seems to imply that men are weak. This makes it difficult to fight for women's rights.

How privileged we are!