Author: Stanfords

Israel is a small country that is characterised by variety. Its landscape, people, cultures, religions and history are a big mixture, making for some hugely interesting and rewarding travelling. Despite its small size, there is a lot to see and do in Israel – from its beautiful old cities to its nature and impressive landscape. Continue reading Where to Visit in Israel

Central Tirana was a building site. The magnificent statue of Skanderberg astride his horse in the main square, Sheshi Skënderbe, was marooned on a small island surrounded by dug-up streets, piles of sand and general roadwork chaos, and that was in addition to the four lanes of traffic.

I had taken the train from Durrës to spend the day in Tirana. The train journey was an experience in itself. I bought a ticket for the one-hour journey for the vast sum of 70 lekë, approximately 50p, and waited to catch the 08.45. The train eventually appeared, a huge rusty old locomotive pulling what were old, probably Italian, carriages. Albanians only take the train when they can’t afford to go by bus for what became obvious reasons. I clambered up from the low platform and looked for somewhere to sit. They were lovely old compartmentalised carriages, all wood and leather and sliding doors, but what a state they were in: broken and ripped seats, cracked and shattered windows and a general air of sad neglect. There were hardly any passengers and, finding a compartment with a usable seat and a window that could be seen out of, I joined an old lady. She was thin and slightly bent, carefully dressed in black and with her silver hair cut into a neat bob. She had a kindly face and wanted to talk, but as soon as it became clear that I could speak neither Italian nor Albanian (being completely dim when it comes to languages), we could only smile apologetically at each other, and make the journey in silence.

A conductor arrived to check tickets. As if to counteract her surroundings, she was very smartly dressed in jacket, skirt and high heels. She was clearly amused to find a tourist on her train, but her mobile phone soon distracted her and off she went, talking at high volume.

The train proceeded at a gentle jog of a pace that was perfect for being able to alternatively stare out the window and read but left it vulnerable to occasional stone-throwing children, which explained the cracked and shattered windows. There seemed to be no lights so every time the train went into a tunnel the carriage was plunged into darkness. Nevertheless it was a pleasant journey and we pulled into Tirana station more-or-less on time. Having checked what time return journeys were, I went off to explore central Tirana.

I decided first to visit the National Historical Museum of Albania, though the road works obscured the entrance and it was only after a full lap of the large modernist building, I finally found the way to the front door. Having deposited my bag and had my attempts at saying thank you in Albanian corrected by the lady at the ticket desk, I headed into the first section. Unfortunately I had managed to time my visit with a group of Germans being given a detailed guided tour, so I skipped ahead, happily if somewhat guiltily (I’m supposed to be an archaeologist) missing some of the prehistoric material. All the labels were in English and the museum went right up to the second world war and the Albanian Resistance. The gallery detailing the Enver Hoxha period was closed for renovations (or revision?), which was a pity as it is always interesting to see how national museums deal with the more complicated bits of their national history. In Zagreb, for example, the Balkan wars of the 1990s was a tiny section in a room at the end of a corridor, sandwiched between displays about the history of Croatian animation and a visit from the Pope. In Belgrade, the national museum was completely shut up and looked on the point of dereliction but you should see their Military Museum…. The German tour group caught up with me in the section on Albania’s struggle for nationhood. This was followed by the gallery on the second world war, at the entrance to which the museum guide ceased his detailed tour and disappeared, abandoning the Germans to their own interpretations.

Having brushed up on Albania’s history, I wandered on towards the river, past the very pretty Et’hem Bey Mosque which had somehow survived destruction during Hoxha’s clamp down on religion in the 1960s, in search of a surviving section of Justinian city wall and on to see if I could find Hoxha’s residence. This was actually located in a very trendy and expensive part of Tirana – full of seemingly cloned people wearing the same things, brandishing the same designer labels and languishing about drinking expensive coffee (had I unwittingly stepped through a wormhole onto King’s Road, London?). I retreated back to the river, pausing to admire the huge, truly alien-looking pyramid-inspired and ugly as hell building that was once a museum to Hoxha. It was designed by his daughter, Pranvera, and her husband Klement Kolaneci and completed in 1988. Once marble-clad, this rather unique, architecturally as well as politically, building was looking very dilapidated and sadly is to be demolished. It is to be replaced by a new and, of course, much bigger building for the Albanian Parliament.

A torrential downpour from a heavy sky that had been threatening it all day drove me to return to the train station. Time to get back to Durrës to plan the next day’s travels. I wanted to go on to North Albania, to Shkodër to visit the amazing Rozafa Fortress, and from there cross the border into Montenegro…

For my month-long Balkan trip, I used the Lonely Planet Western Balkans guide book, the Lonely Planet Eastern European phrase book, and the Freytag & Berndt Balkans/South-East Europe map.

Author: Caroline Sandes

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Albania is not often on anyone’s itinerary but it is an intriguing and quite beautiful country to visit. I came across by bus from Orhid, Macedonia, and my destination was Tirana, the capital. Once the border crossing had been negotiated, which involved changing buses, helping a garrulous old woman with too much baggage, and being entertained by some blatant bribing of a customs official by a truck driver in a hurry, the bus was on its way.

The first part of the journey was spectacular. The bus meandered down through the mountains to the green countryside of small fields dotted with farms and buildings. Across the mountainsides and down into the lowlands were umpteen small toadstool-like cement lookouts – Enver Hoxha’s infamous bunkers – indestructible evidence of Albania’s isolation under his dictatorship.

Albania is poor by European standards and farming is clearly still predominantly small-scale and labour-intensive. There was a seemingly inordinate number of hens and turkeys taking the notion of free-range to its extreme. At a junction, I spotted a small wooden cart being pulled by a stocky white horse, the driver sitting behind; standing in the cart serenely surveying all around him was a thick-set brown and white bullock with a halter on. We passed through the town of Elbasan – its tall brick chimneys sticking up above the town, some smoking. In the centre, a great block of a building was almost completely covered in a huge banner proclaiming the town the home of the American University of Tirana. A little bit later, along the side of the road, nowhere in particular, was a man sitting in an armchair with a fire blazing away beside him.

The coach seemed to be taking a rather circuitous route to Tirana, for suddenly the coast appeared on the left hand side. A quick examination of my map and guidebook, and a questioning ‘Durrës?’ to a couple of my fellow passengers indicated that we were fact coming into that city before heading back inland to Tirana. Deciding I’d had enough of sitting on a coach (I’d been travelling since early morning and it was now late afternoon) and wanting to see Durrës anyway, I made a swift change of plan, and got off the bus when it pulled into the bus station. The driver looked most concerned, knowing I had a ticket for Tirana – ‘No Tirana’ he said to me several times, but I reassured him best as I could with lots of smiles and ‘Durrës, yes’. He shrugged his shoulders, unconvinced, and off I went to look for somewhere to stay.

It had been raining and was quite humid as I made my way round broken paving slabs, puddles, stray dogs, rush hour pedestrians and traffic. Durrës is a port city, and judging by the journeys being advertised by the travel shops that lined the bus-cum-train station, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere you can’t take a boat to. Despite its Communist-era architecture, Durrës is in fact an ancient city and so in between the modern and not so modern buildings, the mosques, the telegraph wires, the traffic and all the trappings of a busy if somewhat poor city, survives a large Roman amphitheatre, some evidence of a Roman basilica along with other bits and pieces, and an impressive stretch of sixth-century Byzantine town wall complete with citadel.

After getting off the bus, I hadn’t been walking for long when an elderly man with the air of a retired professor and pushing a bike appeared beside me. Albanians are reputedly incredibly friendly people and indeed this gentleman seemed to confirm the stereotype, and he spoke English. He was a violinist and worked for the local radio station; where was I going? He seemed unhappy at my choice of hostel and by way of explanation said the place was ‘mysterious for ladies’. Clarification was not forthcoming but he none the less took me to where it was. We navigated several dug up streets, dodging between holes and piles of sand and brick, before arriving at the end of a dark narrow street where the hostel I had been aiming at came into view. It didn’t look particularly inviting even if it was open, which it didn’t appear to be. The violinist suggested a hotel he knew, promising it was very close. Naturally, it was owned by ‘the son of the sister of my father’ and a good price. Hotel Nais (pronounced ‘nice’) was as he said, and a bit of gentle haggling on my part secured the good price.

Although I am an archaeologist by profession, my interests have become somewhat warped into a fascination for derelict buildings and politically-controversial heritage. The highlight of my stay in Durrës wasn’t then so much the Roman Amphitheatre and other archaeological ruins that dot the centre of the city, as interesting as they are, but King Zogu I’s villa. Perched on a, now built-up, hill above the city, with splendid views out across the bay and the sprawl that is modern Durrës, is the grand but derelict house. It is surrounded by a high wall with the gateway blocked by great rolls of tangled barbed wire. I was standing there contemplating if there was any way I could get in when I heard a whistle. Looking up I saw a man leaning on the wall above. He asked if I wanted to come in and then disappeared, reappearing the other side of the barbed wired entrance a few minutes later. A metal bar through the tangle meant he opened it up with ease and let me in. We walked back up the drive in silence until I tentatively asked ‘anglisht?’ in my best non-existent Albanian. He shook his head and suggested ‘Italian?’. When I responded ‘Ireland’, he beamed a smile at me, shook my hand a second time and cheerfully said ‘Belfast!’… With which he waved me up the grand steps to the house and returned to his well-worn chair by the wall.

King Zogu’s villa was built in the late 1920s, designed by Kristo Sotiri in the stylised form of an eagle. After King Zogu fled, it was used by the Communist Party to entertain guests – apparently both Nikita Khrushchev and Jimmy Carter stayed there. It was returned to the Leka Crown Prince of Albania in 2007 but it had been badly damaged during the 1997 unrest in Albania and this is the state it was still in when I explored it.

Even with the vandalism and decay – peeling paint, crumbling plaster, not a door or window surviving and all the fixtures and fittings long since ripped out – the grandeur of the place is still evident. From the full-height hallway is a marble staircase that divides in two and curves up to take you to some huge and grand rooms with marble floors, compartmentalised and moulded ceilings and long windows that look out over the bay. I wandered through rooms and up and down staircases, crunching over bits of fallen plaster and avoiding holes, imagining what it may have been like. A storm was brewing over the bay – the rumble of distant thunder and the dramatically darkening sky over a steely grey-blue sea adding a foreboding atmosphere to the derelict and empty house.

On leaving, I had planned to visit the amphitheatre but the great drops of rain beginning to fall suggested something to eat and finding out about train times for Tirana for the next day were better options. Taking the train to Tirana was to turn out to be an experience all of its own…

For my month-long Balkan trip, I used the Lonely Planet Western Balkans.

Author: Caroline Sandes

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Our cycling trip began with an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo, and after this sleepy start, we began in earnest – cycling off the ferry onto French soil where we’d spend the following week pedalling past the beautiful coastline, canals and villages of north-east Britanny.

But that early morning start in St Malo took us by surprise – believing we were invincible, we suddenly realised that we had taken a wrong turning at a roundabout and were heading north rather than our intended south. So, for the remainder of our trip, we decided we would make full use of a map and the IGN cycling map for this area was a godsend, helping us to plot our route each day and plan where we would pitch our tents and buy our food and locally produced cider.

Leaving St Malo, we headed due south to follow the course of the Ille et Rance Canal, visiting the grey, yet pretty Dinan and small towns such as Tinténiac and Hédé, where we set up camp alongside a lock-keeper’s cottage. The next day, heading north-east through forests and agricultural land, we reached the hilly town of Combourg, which had a resplendent palace and fine French cuisine.

After refuelling in Combourg, we headed in the direction of Mont St Michel. Prior to our arrival, the steep slopes downhill allowed us to rest our legs and take in the magnificent views of Mont St Michel in the distance. The place is beautiful, full of history and definitely worth a visit – but I wouldn’t recommend taking your bike there, unless you want to push it all the way up to the cathedral, through groups of British schoolchildren, along the steep, narrow streets of the island.

The remainder of our cycling adventure followed the coastline back to the ferry terminal, taking in Dol-de-Bretagne (where there is a hill-top belvédère, or viewpoint, from where you can take in the sights of the surrounding villages and countryside), Cancale (excellent beaches and seafood) and St Malo, which is definitely worth visiting for its port atmosphere, old streets and shops and restaurants. You could even try the town’s specialist absinthe bar, if you really want to derange your senses.

For a trip to this area of France, I would definitely recommend referring to the Rough Guide to Brittany & Normandy and the Rennes-Granville IGN 1:100,000 road map.

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Author: Tim Cleary

La Patita de Manzanillo

Two friends and I were staying in a holiday house in the middle of jungle, yet near the beach, in Manzanillo, a small village that locals refer to as ‘the end of the road’, and it quite literally is. It’s right down the bottom of Costa Rica, on the Caribbean coast, nearing the border with Panama.

Having endured some hard days of travel – my friends had come up from Panama, and I had spent about two days travelling from the UK – we were thrilled to arrive at La Patita, a beautiful house sensitively designed and built with native hardwood, situated amongst the coastal jungle, with very little other construction for company. Continue reading Costa Rica

‘Felices Navidad!’ hollered the voice at the end of the distorted phone line. Irritated at having Christmas lunch disturbed, the family was instantly placated by the sound of my brother’s voice coming down a satellite phone from camp one, high on the flank of Aconcagua.

He was a member of the Walon UK & Toyota (GB) plc team of four that, in association with a commercial company and eight others, was attempting to scale the ‘Stone Sentinel’ by the Normal Route in aid of the charity Wooden Spoon. Continue reading Argentina – Climbing Aconcagua

Since the collapse of the Peso, Argentina has gone from the most expensive country in South America to one of the cheapest. This has made Argentina into a hot destination for budget travellers for the first time.

I never made it to Patagonia, because it was winter, but I had a great time in Buenos Aires – a sophisticated European-style city with great food (if you’re not vegetarian), and great nightlife.

Domestic flights have suddenly become a bargain, so you can go to the far-flung corners of this vast country quickly and cheaply. I flew to Salta, a pleasant colonial city up in the foothills of the Andes. From here you can bus up to Bolivia through the back door and acclimatise, unlike flying in to La Paz at 4,000 metres (apprx 13,000ft).

Footprint are the experts in South American travel. The Footprint South American Handbook is great and the Footprint Argentina Handbook is far better than its rivals. As for maps, we stock a range of road atlases, street plans and detailed maps of Patagonia imported from Argentina and Chile.

Browse our collection of maps, guides and travel literature:

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Author: Guy Bristow