the via egnatia day one- crossing the Adriatic by ferry, Bari to Durres

See photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/d3XeSooDqQHoqTPB8

It's not my first day of walking, but I am on my my way across the Adriatic on a ferry from Bari to Durres. I thought it was appropriate to travel the same way the Romans did, rather than flying to Albania direct.

Last night i watched all the big semi trailers reversing on to the ferry and wondered how they would get them all on by ten pm. 

If tonight's numbers are any indication, this route is as important now as in Roman times. It surprises me that it is more efficient for trucks to drive down the italian peninsula and spend ten hours on a ferry rather than drive through the balkans. And there is another company doing the same route, plus departures from trieste and ancona as well. That is a lot of trucks.

Had a cafeteria meal of chips and turkey in gravy and went to bed. Turns out the rooms are pretty good. I ended up with a three berth cabin just for me. I almost thought of offfering the other two beds to people who were scrambling to find a spot to lie down in the corridors, but i let my caution get the better of me. The cabin crossing seems pretty good value to me. 150 AUD for a cabin for two and a ten hour crossing on a ferry. I think a car is 90 euros, so just over 150 AUD. Much better value than the car ferry to north stradbroke island.

Big bathroom with good hot water, long shower and to bed. Woken by the sound of the engines at three am and wondered naively why i hadn't  noticed them earlier. An announcement over the loudspeakers had me jumping out of bed at seven. More naivety. Thought it must have said we're  nearly there! No. The ferry left at three am. Five hours late. So much for a full day of exploring ...

Eventually, reception opened and i got told we would arrive at ten thirty, they had put the foot down apparently. On deck my phone confirmed we were more than 3/4 of the way there and a little later i saw a yellow breasted land bird fluttering around the deck, drinking from rain puddles. Wouldn't  think such a little bird vould have wandered too far from land.

After a torrential downpour greeted me on disembarking, i set off under grey skies to find my room for the night. Despite the sky, my first impressions were positive. Very quick passage through passport control and a friendly guard asking where i was from. Walked 2 kms to the airbnb and my host, Albert picked me up form a corner bar since i couldn't  find his place. A local rang him for me. Very kind.

A quick look at my excelent lodgings, whole apartmenr for 13 aud!, i got a bus into town, using money albert had loaned me. Found an ATM that would give me leke instead of euros and bought bakery for lunch. Grezt big peice of spinach burek. But they couldn't  change my notes so they gave it to me for free! Discovered that i was already walking on the via egnatia, here called rruga egnatia.

Fed, i set off to the museum. Sadly only one of the three floors is open while renovations go on, but it was full of well displayed artefacts and good signage in English. Artefacts frm the Greek/illyrian town of epidamnos as it was then called, famous the dispute over epidamnos, which was one of the cquses of the Peloponnesian war between athens and sparta. Then more from its time as the Roman town of Dyrrachum.

Nothin amazing but worth a look.  I particularly liked all the funerary art, with some moving images. Husband and wife looking at each other, two men with theirms aroundveach other, a family of mum, dad and daughter, and illyrian tombstones, which i had never seen before. Turns out the place was a real hotspot in artemis worshipping as well, with dozens of representations. 

Wandered around the amphitheatre , with a mosque in the background. While Albania is majority muslim, years of religion being banned under the dicatorship of enver hoxa means most people are not religious.

An interesting feature is a byzantine chapel with wall mosaics built into the foundations. The whole thing ended up  being built into the walls pof the town.

As i walked through a gateway in the walls i had my first encounter with some roma people, unfortunately reinforcing all the stereotypes. First one filthy little kid begging and of course, after my fatal mistake of handing over some coins, another appeared. To be fair, they were a lot less persistent than some.

Quick look at the scant remains of the byzantine forum and then it was back to my lodgings to write. Brief wander along the beach on the way from the bus. Not inspiring. There is less rubbish here than Egypt but more than any where else i have been in europe.

So my first day in shqiperia to use the locals use, is at an end. Tried learning two words and keep forgetting them both!

Tomorrow the walking begins.

Six days in Belesta

After four weeks of never being in one place for more than three nights, it was a relaxing wind down to be 'at home' in Belesta for six days before heading back to Australia. Arrived at Toulouse airport from Athens and was met by a very nice young man, Bryan, at the car hire desk. It turned out he had spent two years in Australia and was hoping to be able to immigrate. It was a conversation that  somehow seemed the wrong way around, with me extolling the virtues of France and he, of Australia. His biggest point was the difference in income, while i pointed to the higher cost of most things. And the awful humidity of Brisbane in summer. Anyway, off i drove in a huge suv upgrade.
I drove with a bit of care, since bryan had told me all the defaced/totally trashed speed cameras were getting repaired now. Saw one that had been burnt with car tyres  and others still covered in bright yellow paint. The one between lavelanet and foix seems to have totally disappeared. But i did see one in working order. And the autoroute toll gates are back to work. You could never imagine this level of civil disobedience in Australia. And most of the hard core gilets jaunes are retirees. They're  still there, at roundabouts with their marquees and little bonfires, but each weekend there are less of them mobilising. In one maybe backdown, there has been some talk of the government going back to 90 kmh from 80 on single lane out of town roads. Apparently I'm  not the only one who has picked up loads of speeding fines. There are very few speed signs in France. You're  just expected to know the speed limits.
It was nice to find everything in order in the house. Last time i got there, i discovered the kitchen tap had fallen apart resulting in a mad dash to the hardware to replace, so i could turn the water on.
I had two beautiful days to wander round exploring. On the first, i took a drive up to what is known as the pays de sault, a high plain above belesta. It's  maybe at 1200 metres. I had seen that there was supposed to be a roman bridge in a little gorge. As usual, there was a gorgeous little village, flowers everywhere, complete silence and a delightful walk along the river to the bridge. It turned out to be damaged so had been closed off for safety, but i took a quick stroll across. Some of the stone work had crumbled along one side. After a high path through the forest to get there, the walk back was along the roman road from the bridge. The next day i took a scenic drive to and from decathlon, hoping for some hiking bargains, but realised i really don't  need to buy anything. But the drive was lovely, one beautiful little village after the other.
Friday, i had a friend driving down from where i used to live, for a visit. It was an awful day out, pouring rain as if it was a queensland wet season. There were flood warnings, but while the river almost lapped the road i don't  think any actual flooding occured. Last autumn a lot of people died when the nearby Aude river became a wall of water that crashed through a village near Carcassonne.
That evening, we dined at an excellent local restaurant, la maison. Its expensive, but worth the money for a treat. The big attraction is the buffet entree. Huge variety of shellfish, smoked fish, foie gras, hot dishes etc etc. Followed by typical country dishes like confit duck and cassoulet, and grilled meats they bbq over the open fire. Throw in a cheese board and dessert and you leave feeling very full. 35 euros for the lot.
Saturday was cloudy but the rain seemed to be gone, so we loaded our bikes into the suv and headed for the canal du midi for a test ride. I think i have pretty much convinced john it is a fun thing to do next year, to ride its length. It wasn't  the best day to try it though. The path had become thick muddy sludge that made pedaling very hard work. Still, we had gone 6 kms when there was a sudden sound of something whacking into John's  spokes and he ground to a halt. His derailleur had snapped off. Never seen that before. Luckily weren't  far from a road so i rode back to the car and was back in under an hour. It did make us realise that we might need to know a bit of basic bike repair before doing a 500 km bike ride. We spent the evening watching the EU election results. In several hours of coverage on two channels they never once referred to the results in other countries. We had to resort to the guardian coverage for that. The french seem very insular in their news reporting. The results weren't  as bad as in Australia, but having proto or just out and out fascist parties get the most votes in hungary, poland, italy, uk and france wasn't  great. However, in reality, in the uk and france, that is still only 33 and 22 % of the votes. The problem in both those places was how the centre and left vote was split across so many parties. I thought it was hilarious hubris on the part of le pen to declare macron had lost all legitimacy and needed to call new elections. His party got barely more than one point less than hers, and had not existed until two years ago.  And nearly 80 percent of france had voted against her fascist ideology. Sadly, not so in Belesta. It is each local maire's responsibilty to count votes so i looked on the belesta noticeboard and did a quick adding up. The national front ( i am going to keep using their old name),  got over forty percent of the vote. The left vote was split across five parties!
Sunday was market day at Esperaza, 30 minutes away with the bonus of a vide grenier as well. It's  a wonderful market full of young and old alternative types selling organic produce, a whole range of food from paella to vietnamese and indian. It's perfect for a slow Sunday  morning. We moved on to limoux with the promise of another vide grenier but the clouds had kept everyone at home. There were three stall holders who obviously couldn't  think of anything better to do with their Sunday.  It was in the grounds of a beautiful church though, and looking at that was worth the trip.
That evening i finally found the craft brewery at puivert open. And discovered the unlikely little australian expat colony that lives in the village. Four different couples, i think. In fact, everyone in there was an english speaker, which was slightly disappointing.  We moved on to saint colombe sur l'hers, to le stop pub, but it was shut. However,  the bar just down from it was open. We went in, but in french we got informed it was a club prive so we disappointedly headed back to the car, before being called back. We went in and got a little interrogation in french. Where we were from, were we on holidays etc, before the only other customer says, in english, come on alex, stop torturing them. The owner is english, but is choosy about his clientele. We ended up having a good old chat with him and robert. During which i discovered i had better be careful about my skinny dipping habit. Alex now has a criminal record as a result of complaints to the police about him swimming nude in the river.

Monday saw John motor off and after he left I did a bit of cleaning up, finally taking all the old bits of beds from the attic to the dump. I love going there. the employees are so helpful, almost running to the car to check what you have and then helping you unload it into the appropriate bins. The fact that it is free helps too.

and that was it. the next day involved driving to Toulouse airport, taking a flight to Barcelona, waiting four hours, flying to Zurich, then to Singapore and finally to Brisbane and la vie quotidienne. 

a few pics here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/poB2XunEh4fxHc9m7