Northern Albania
By Deborah and Johan - We were very impressed by southern Albania. We left Gjirokastër on a high as we chose to walk out of the old City to save our brakes and bums from the cobblestones on a medieval angle (check out the horizontal lines on the wall in this next picture 😳) We knew that biking straight up the west coast of Albania, wasn’t going to be the most scenic route but chose that route because we didn’t want to go through the big ups and downs of the deep valleys in the east. Instead we were aiming for the Northern Alps. The roads going up the western side really aren’t designed for cycling. Highway 4 started ok, busy but with a wide enough shoulder through the Gjirokastër valley to the coast. The rest of the way via Fierzë, Durrës, Lezhe to Shkodër was pretty horrible and dangerous with heavy traffic and hardly any shoulder to speak off. Unfortunately we didn’t like parts of these few days as a result. Luckily for some stretches we found a few rural side roads...