Four Riding Days

During the winter, maybe as early as January, we arranged (and paid for) vacation with a large group of friends. In Canj, to take the surprise 🙂 That small village is not anybody’s favourite place on the Montenegrin coast, but we had a recommendation for a hotel. From August 15th to 20th, “Pearl Beach Hotel”. Sorry, RESORT 😀

To make the party better, we agreed to leave a few days earlier, on Friday, August 12th, by motorbikes – the four of us who will stay at the seaside and the two who will return home on Monday. Departure, 10 AM, first stop Raska, the final destination for the day Skopje. It’s warm outside, but with hints of rain that we’re about to meet. This does not prevent us from taking a break (although it would have been wiser not to) right after entering Kosovo (yes, yes, stickers on license plates, but everyone, from the police to the customs service, was very kind). Lunch and a snack were in the place and that led very soon to another stop. The rain caught us and forced us to wait for more than an hour near Lipljan. It didn’t stop but only decreased a little, enough for us to put on our rain suits and hit the road. In the meantime, a change of plan – we will be going all the way to Ohrid, hoping that the rain will not continue, as it did not. We arrived somewhere around 9:30 PM, found accommodation and our vacation began. 

Saturday was a day for cloudy Ohrid, sheltering from occasional rain and mostly walking and eating 😀 because it was fresh for the beach and swimming. The continuation of the journey is planned for Sunday – destination Durrës. But, as it often happens to us, before leaving, our Ohrid landlord suggested another place on the Albanian coast, instead of Durrës so – change of plans. And here we are in Shengjin (it sounds like it’s in China, but it’s not) after travelling slowly and carefully because of the light rain that was starting and stopping the whole way..

Shengjin at first glance looks like any place on the Italian coast – hotel after hotel, sandy beaches, shallow sea, excellent coffee – the only difference is in the structure of guests and prices. The Albanian lek has the same value as our dinar, which saved us from recalculation. In the evening, according to the recommendation of the friendly receptionist of the Hotel Alba where we spent the night, we went to dinner at the excellent seafood restaurant Detari. Everything we ate (octopus, seafood, seafood risotto) was excellent and oh-so-delicious. And when that comes from someone who isn’t a fan of this type of food, it means it was excellent.  

Monday was waiting for us to get to our final destination. We agreed to stop at Shkodër, to have breakfast and then continue to Montenegro. Yet, we just had a coffee since the kitchen was still not working. We certainly hung out a little more together, got ready and continued each on our own side – Dejan and Kiza to Arandjelovac, Moca, the other Dejan, my husband and I further towards Canj, that is, Budva. At the end of the joint trip, a joint photo of the motorcycle riders. I, the poor fellow traveller, am on this side of the camera 😀