Today I would like to tell you about a trip I made last month to my homeland: Albania. Although it is geographically close to Italy, reaching the land of eagles is not easy. Probably the quickest solution is to take a plane and land in Tirana, but this solution prevents you from being able to carry things when you return to Italy, so the best solution for us is to go by car and in this case, there are two possibilities: one is to go halfway to Bari on four wheels and then take a ferry and disembark in Durres or to go all the way around by car crossing five or six countries and arrive in Albania through the Balkans. Normally, we make this journey all in one, so a single trip from Italy to Albania takes more or less 16 to 24 hours depending on the traffic at the various customs crossings. This time however we decided to take it a bit easier, so we left in the morning and stopped in Ljubljana halfway through, and rented a room in the city of Dubrovnik in southern Croatia, the tourist city is very famous as it has been used as a filming location for episodes of Game of Thrones. Ready to leave from there and then arrive in Albania takes another five to six hours, and so this makes for a much more comfortable journey with the possibility precisely also to stop and visit the very beautiful cities.

Ljubljana

Let's start with the first stop on this trip: Ljubljana, a city I am very fond of, where I have been several times. A small city (for a European capital), but very characteristic, a jewel in my opinion, which especially at night with all the lights is particularly fascinating. Especially the area along the river, where all the clubs are, is very lovely and stopping for a drink is a must. This time due to time constraints we obviously did not manage to go at night, we visited the city during the day. Below are some of the photos (a few, unfortunately) I took in the city center.

Dubrovnik

Let us now move on to the main destination of this post, the city of Dubrovnik. A very peculiar and charming city. We booked a small flat halfway between the city center and the historical part, the slightly more famous part. The accommodation that we booked, had prices comparable to those that can be found in the rest of Europe especially because Dubrovnik is now so famous and trafficked by tourists that prices are no longer comparable to those of the rest of Croatia ... from our accommodation to the center of the old town, it took about 40 minutes, but it was a very pleasant walk as the city is very beautiful and also the walk always allows you to have the Adriatic Sea on the side.

Arriving in the old city, one immediately gets the impression of being in a world completely separate from the rest, although I have to put that other feeling that the city is a bit of a fiction because in any case the walls and walls and all the rest of the structures are not that old in fact I imagine the city has been rebuilt recently. The feeling you get is that of being on a film set (which is partly real).

Despite this, the impression I had was very pleasant, the city is very beautiful and especially along the main street, there are a lot of lanes that climb upwards, since the city is developed on the facade of a mountain and then at every intersection, if you look to the left coming from the city center you can see these streets that climb upwards really very beautiful with the illuminated signs of the various local restaurants, etc., etc. also then all the structures are very well maintained and with a fascinating medieval touch.

Then there is also the harbor, where this looks like a very old pulled ship was moored.

Some other pictures from the city

This was a very interesting trip for me, especially since I had the chance to see Dubrovnik (you don't know how many times I passed with the car to the highway very close to it, seeing from above and never stopping by).
I will for sure return to it also in the future to have a longer visit, since I think also the city itself (apart from the old town) is very beautiful.
Going towards Albania I also spotted this very nice town from the car.

Sadly I didn't check the name at the time. Maybe one of my readers knows it? Please let me know if you recognize it 😊.

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