Heading north

It's a touch under 100km from Tirana to Shkoder and you'd expect a quick getaway on a Sunday morning at 11. Needless to say, the Tirana traffic was just as bad as always and our bus spent almost two and a half hours covering the distance. Mind you when you're paying $6.50 for the ride, you can't really complain too much. The buses are air conditioned and generally in good condition, even if the driving leaves a little to be desired.
We arrived in Shkoder around 1.30pm and the taxi drivers made their usual attempt to drum up business at the bus stop but, as I have mentioned before, they really aren't very pushy in this country.
We had lunch at our hotel, the Tradita, which is a very funky place. The building dates back to the 1600s and was reinvented as a hotel about 20 years ago.
The Financial Times described the restaurant at Tradita thus 'The eclectic but elegant Hotel Tradita throws lively restaurant parties on weekends. Several rakia will have you swaying to the thumping Balkan beat, while waiters weave expertly through the revellers with cheese fondues and great vegetable platters.'
With stomachs full of tasty Albanian food we hit the streets to walk it off. Shkoder has certainly been discovered. The central city area has been gentrified to the point of losing its connection with its past. There's a nice mosque and a big Catholic Cathedral where the priest had plenty of punters for Sunday evening mass when we dropped by.

The rest of the area is chock full of bars and restaurants serving the usual fare like lasagna and tapas, a sure sign that a town has been invaded by cruise ship and tourist coach types. In one area, the renovations have been so hasty, in order to cope with the mass invasion of tourists, that the facades are already coming apart. There were locals on the job on a Sunday evening trying to fix the damage, no doubt ready for the next influx of summer tourists in a few weeks.