Category: We’ve Been There

After Nashville, battling a slight hangover, I headed towards another great southern state, Kentucky, home of bourbon, tobacco and horse racing. But as I don’t smoke and don’t give a damn about the horse racing I headed straight for some of the excellent bourbon distilleries. They are mostly located in small towns or even villages and getting there gives you the opportunity to explore some fantastic rural drives.

First, a few words about bourbon itself. It is a type of American whiskey; the name comes from an area known as Old Bourbon, (which, in turn, was named after the French royal family), around what is now Bourbon county, Kentucky. In the past the whiskey was transported in barrels with the name of the county on them and people started calling it simply bourbon. For a whiskey to qualify as bourbon, the law stipulates that it must be made in the USA. It must be made from at least 51% and no more than 79% Indian corn, and aged for at least two years (most bourbon is aged for four years or more). The barrels for ageing can be made of any kind of new oak, and are charred on the inside. Continue reading Kentucky

My latest adventure started in Atlanta but I left it as soon as I had landed and headed north towards Tennessee as I wanted to explore some positively rural corners of the south. After quite a pleasant drive (including an overnight stop in the fantastically named Chattanooga) I got to the first place I planned to visit during this trip, the town of Lynchburg. This small city, located in the rural heart of Tennessee, is home to one of the best known brands in the world, the legendary Jack Daniels. Of course the J.D. distillery (located just east of town) had to be my first port of call. I’m the sort of guy who likes visiting mines, factories and all sorts of strange industrial places, but this distillery is a great place for anyone to visit. Continue reading Tennessee

The hotel receptionist was vague about the early bus to Shkodër. That or she just thought I was mad to want to catch a bus at 7.30 in the morning; she thought there was one at about 1pm instead. From past experiences, I’ve learnt to pay attention to this kind of oblique advice so, instead of getting up early and rushing off for a potentially non-existent bus, I had a leisurely breakfast and went for a coffee and final wander along Durrës’ sea front. I needed to get to Shkodër in North Albania to then be able to cross over into Montenegro. What’s more, Shkodër is overlooked by a huge and ancient ruined castle, the Rozafa Fortress, that I wanted to explore. Continue reading Shkodër, Albania, and on to Montenegro

After a few years’ break in my travels to the US, Boston was the first place I visited. It was my first purely tourist visit, not connected to any summer job in America and I spent more time there than in such tourist heavyweights as NYC or San Francisco. There were quite a few reasons for that. Firstly, it is one of the closest US destinations to Europe, just about 7 hours’ flight. Secondly, at the time of planning our trip it was also one of the cheapest places to fly to. Thirdly, established in 1630, Boston is one of the oldest cities in the US and I really like history. Finally, I was travelling with a person who was (and probably still is) positively fixated with all the things Irish and Boston is probably the most “Irish” city in America. So, because all of these random reasons I finally landed in Boston on a beautiful, sunny, September afternoon in 2007.

It was a really glorious day so we quickly dropped our luggage at the hotel and went not to the city of Boston but to Cambridge instead, just across the river. Named after Cambridge in England, the city is home to two of the world’s most prominent universities, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The heart of the town and its busiest part is Harvard Square, located right next to the famous university. It is a great place to spend a relaxing and a slightly funky afternoon. The whole area is full of shops selling new and used books, nice coffee shops and eateries catering to a large local student population. We had a really good time browsing in bookshops and munching some delicious food. Of course being in Cambridge we couldn’t skip a visit to the Harvard University Campus, especially its oldest part, the beautiful Harvard Yard. It contains thirteen of Harvard College’s seventeen freshman dormitories, among them the Massachusetts Hall, which, having been constructed in 1720, is the oldest surviving building on Harvard’s campus and one of the two oldest academic buildings in the United States. Also located in the Old Yard is a statue of the university’s first benefactor, John Harvard. This monument is a frequent target for pranks, hacks, and humorous decorations. Moreover, Harvard students urinate on the very foot that tourists rub for good luck. Be warned.

The following day the weather changed completely. Off went the shorts and T-shirts, on went rain jackets and warm clothes. Somehow it always happens to me. On the day of arrival the weather is glorious but then it turns much worse. A couple of years later I had exactly the same experience in Minneapolis and then again in Chicago. Such is my luck. At least it wasn’t a complete washout so we bravely hit the streets of downtown Boston.

Boston is one of the oldest cities in the US and is the largest city in New England. This bustling metropolis offers an interesting mixture of old and new architecture. We started our tour from the Boston Common which is a lovely park, sort of Boston’s answer to Central Park in New York. It has, however, a much longer history as it started as a pasture in 1630 and it was also used as a camp by the British during the American War of Independence. All this long before Central Park was even created. Just north of the Common you can see the spectacular golden dome of Massachusetts Capitol. It really is covered with 23k gold.

From the Common we headed towards the historic heart of Boston. There, in a relatively small area, you can find one of the most important sites in American history. One of them is the Old State House, built in years 1712-13, in front of which the Boston Massacre happened, an event which led a few years later to the War of Independence. Another historic building, not far away, is Faneuil Hall, which has been a marketplace and meeting hall since 1742. It was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain.

If all this history is too much (or if you don’t care in the first place) there is always the Quincy Market, located right next to Faneuil Hall. It was constructed in 1824-26 and is still going strong. Of course nowadays it is a touristy and gentrified sort of market, very similar to London’s Covent Garden, but still offering some great food. We spent quite a while there shopping for all sort of delicacies and gifts (a Red Sox baseball hat for example).

From the market area we moved north towards the North End, one of the oldest residential communities in the country, a place where people have lived continuously since it was settled in the 1630s.

Crossing a small urban park it is hard to imagine that not long ago to get there we would have had to walk under one of the worst urban highways in America, the infamous Central Artery (Interstate 93). A structure apparently so ugly that locals called it “the other Green Monster”. What is most amazing is the fact that this road wasn’t just removed, it was actually hidden underground and replaced on the surface by a 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) series of parks and public spaces during one of the biggest engineering projects in the world. It really changed Boston for the better. The once isolated North End became integrated with the rest of city.

As I mentioned before this small (just a third of a square mile ) and chaotic neighbourhood is one of the oldest parts of Boston. It is also Boston’s Little Italy with around a third of residents Italian. And it really feels that way, with all the Italian restaurants, and Italian flags painted even on the fire hydrants. Narrow streets and small buildings only reinforce the old world impression. It is a great place for stroll. And, of course, for good food as well.

But for architecture my favourite neighbourhood in Boston is Back Bay. It is located just west of the Boston Common and is the total opposite of the North End. If the North End is chaotic, disorganized, spontaneous, even messy, then Back Bay is organized and stately. The reason for that is that it was built as a planned community in the second half of the 19^th century. It was constructed on filled tidal land which was once literally a bay. The plan of Back Bay was greatly influenced by Haussmann’s renovation of Paris, with wide, parallel, tree-lined avenues unlike anything seen in other Boston neighbourhoods. Five east-west corridors are intersected at regular intervals by north-south cross streets. Restrictions written into the lot deeds of the newly filled Back Bay produced harmonious rows of dignified three- and four-story residential brownstones. Back Bay is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is considered one of the best-preserved examples of 19th-century urban architecture in the United States. All of its streets and avenues are tree-lined which gives the neighbourhood a patrician feel (and raises the property values as well), but none of them more so than the central axis of Back Bay, the Commonwealth Avenue, which is actually a parkway divided at the centre by a wide grassy mall dotted with statues and memorials. Today, along with neighbouring Beacon Hill, it is one of Boston’s most expensive residential neighbourhoods as well as a fashionable shopping destination.

The best way of ending the day in Boston is to visit one of the many Irish bars which dot this city, (especially if your travel companion is all-things-Irish-crazy). We wanted to visit some pubs outside the downtown which were recommended in the guidebooks, but couldn’t find them. That way we ended up in some random local dive (the name of which I can’t remember) in the south part of Boston, in the area called Roxbury Crossing. The bar was narrow, dark and definitely oriented towards the locals. Food was good and they had plenty of good Irish and American beers. It was a fitting end to our visit in Boston.

In general Boston has the feel of a prosperous and friendly city. It is also relatively compact and one of the most pedestrian-friendly cities in America. In other words the perfect place to ditch the car (or at least park it underground for most of the day) and switch to comfortable shoes instead. For me it is up there, together with Portland, as one of the best destinations in America for a relaxing short city break. It’s not as overwhelming as NYC, or too touristy like San Francisco, just perfect.

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Author: Gregor Swiderek

Choosing a mode of transportation is one of the most important decisions when you are planning your trip. Technically, you don’t have to rent a car, but let’s be straight and honest: public transport in the US sucks and if you don’t have a car your mobility will be greatly reduced.

Anyway, let’s start with public transport.

Probably the most romantic way of travelling around the USA is by using the trains. Railways built America. Anyone who knows a bit of US history or even just watches the western movies knows what I’m talking about. However, the truth is that nowadays America has all but abandoned its passenger railways. American freight railways are one of the most efficient in the world, but passenger services are a mess. The government-owned Amtrak still runs the trains, but its services are severely limited and every year there is a fight for subsidies threatening the future of the company. Transcontinental trains are more expensive than flights but they offer a great experience and often fantastic scenery. If you plan to use them a lot, the cheapest option is to book a multi-day pass before you arrive in America. Summarizing, American trains are rather expensive, services on a particular route often run only a few times a week, the network is rather skeletal, but on the other hand they offer a great American experience and scenery (especially in the western half of the country). Trains are fun, but they won’t really be practical during any slightly more complicated itinerary.

One of the cheapest options for covering longer distances is to use long-distance coaches. The biggest company with the most extensive network of connections is Greyhound. Its buses plough the interstates from coast to coast and from the Canadian border to the Mexican one and beyond. It offers reasonable fares and good value multi-day passes which can be bought even cheaper if you book them from abroad. However, it often offers only one connection a day on particular routes which often arrive or departs at quite ungodly hours. Its bus stations are often located in rather bad and not quite safe neighbourhoods. For example, I definitely wouldn’t recommend visiting the Greyhound bus station in Los Angeles after dark. On the plus side, you can meet some interesting if sometimes weird people on board Greyhound buses. Just remember that many Greyhound customers are not exactly the cream of society, including people who can’t get driving licences or have had them revoked for reasons you might not want to know.

There are some other bus companies, most notably Megabus, which in the last few years has aggressively developed new routes and at the same time offers very low prices. The problem is that its network is limited to a few hubs like, for example, Chicago. It mostly offers routes from its hubs and it doesn’t serve smaller destinations. On the plus side, its buses are modern and offer Wi-fi and its customer base is more diverse than Greyhound’s one.

In general, coaches are good only if you want to move between larger cities and don’t really plan to exploration the countryside. For example, as far as I know, none of the national parks can be reached by bus. For that you really need a car.

To really have freedom of movement you will need to get yourself a car. Fortunately renting a car in America is easy and cheap. One of the most common pieces of advice found in the guidebooks is to look for fly-and-drive deals. I can definitely say it is mostly not true. It might work if you want the smallest and cheapest junk car, but even then you can be better off choosing your own car rental agency. You can search offers and check prices directly on the car rental agencies’ websites or using aggregating sites, like with flights and airlines. Car rental prices do fluctuate, but much less than the prices of flights. I usually book cars quite late, directly on the car rental site and always choose the option of paying at the rental desk rather than in advance. That way I pay a bit more (usually only few bucks) but if I have to cancel my rental I avoid the hassle of applying for the refund or losing the “no show” fee.

Next important thing to remember is the insurance. If you book a car from the American site of the multinational companies your prices will be quoted in dollars and most likely won’t include the insurance (apart from third party coverage). The reason for that is that many Americans are covered by their own insurance when they rent cars. I would recommend using the European sites of the big chains because they quote full inclusive prices which come as a better deal than getting insurance later at the rental desk. Always make sure your price includes the CDW (collision and damage waiver) or LDW (loss and damage waiver), otherwise you will be responsible for any scratch on the car you rented.

Next thing to decide is the type of car you want to rent. Of course, it all depends on how many people are travelling with you but remember that American cars in any given class are larger than their European equivalents. Having said that, I never choose the smallest class or two, even when I travel alone. There might be enough space inside but you can feel that such cars are good enough for shopping drives in the cities but not for the proper long journeys on the American highways. No, thank you very much. Also remember that when you book a car you book a vehicle from a given class but not the specific model. So booking “Mustang or similar” usually means the similar one, not the Mustang itself. Fortunately, if you have a bit more money available some companies offer booking specific models. For example, Hertz offers bookings for Mustangs and Camaros specifically on its website. It also pays to ask at the rental desk if there is any upgrade available. Sometimes for a little bit extra you can get some really nice cars (that’s how I managed to drive a Ford Mustang for the first time). Never pay for options you don’t need; agents often push for some extra insurance options because it is the way they make the extra money. Also don’t pre-purchase an extra tank of fuel. Normally you get the car full and are supposed to drop it off full. Agents often try to up-sell you the option of dropping the car off empty. It doesn’t make sense as the price of fuel they offer is not really competitive and you will never drop car off totally dry. Also think twice about the satellite navigation system. All the companies offer them as extras, but often you will be better off buying your own rather than renting one, especially on longer trips. Alternatively, nowadays you can easily use your smart-phone for navigation. I myself as a traditionalist and map lover use paper maps and atlases. They give me greater spatial awareness than just dumbly following the instructions of a sat-nav.

Once you finalize all the paperwork and check your car, it is time to finally hit the road. Be careful: You will be probably driving an unfamiliar car, possibly on the opposite side of the road than you are used to and you will be tired after many hours on the plane. Take it easy on the first day even if you are experienced driver. Take time to get a feel of the car you have rented. Also remember that American airports are a busy environment and driving around them is often frantic. Especially leaving the gates of LAX or ORD (Chicago), you will be dropped straight into the jungle of urban driving. But the same applies to most of the big hub airports.

In general, driving in the USA is quite easy and a rather relaxing experience. Especially for those used to the frantic pace of European driving. Speed limits are lower and people do drive slower. Of course there are exceptions, namely the big cities. One of them is New York City, where driving can be a nightmare. In NYC I would recommend using the public transport which is very efficient. It is in fact one of the few places in the US where you can actually survive without a car. Other places where driving can be crazy is greater Los Angeles. Its freeways sometimes resemble a war zone where every other driver tries to take you out. Unfortunately for those scared of driving, here you will need your own four wheels. In most of the cities it makes sense to avoid rush hours and while in downtown to park your car and simply walk.

There are very few speed cameras in the US, however highway patrol have a tendency to hide under bridges or in the central reservation and hunt for speeding drivers. If you want to speed a bit, do it in the middle of nowhere (like the Dakotas, Nebraska or Kansas) rather than in suburban America. Also bear in mind that interstates are patrolled much more heavily than the state highways. Also remember that each state has its own driving rules. They are broadly similar but you should make yourself familiar at least with the speed limits or some specific exemptions.

Luckily for intrepid travellers who want to cover a lot of ground, fuel prices in America are still much lower than in Europe and most of the roads are free. There are a few toll roads in the Northeast, Oklahoma and Kansas as well as short stretches around the suburbs of the southern cities (Dallas, Houston, Austin, Orlando and even LA).

Driving has one more advantage: you will be able to access much cheaper accommodation. More about this next time.

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This is a long and changeable subject, but let me try to cover some of the basics. I travel to the US mostly from the UK, so information here will be most relevant for those travelling from Britain but I will try to cover some universal basics.

Transatlantic routes are some of the busiest in the world, which means there is plenty of choice. I am definitely a budget traveller, so the most important factor for me is the price. My rule number one is never to fly in high season which generally means July and August. Prices in these months tend to hike to sometimes ridiculous levels and things get very busy, especially planes, accommodation, attractions etc. For me this is a definite no, no. Similarly Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving and other holidays are dates to be avoided. Flying during the midweek can also save you quite a few bucks, pounds or euros.

Your choice of the airport is equally important. The best rates available are often to the big hub airports like JFK, LAX, ORD, ATL or DAL. Apart from the cheap rates they offer the advantage of direct flights and save you the hassle of changing planes in the USA. And it is a hassle since in most American airports you have to collect your luggage, go through immigration and customs and then recheck your luggage again for the internal flight. In my opinion, it is better to plan your trip in such a way that it starts and ends in a hub airport with direct flights from Europe. So instead of flying to, let’s, Charleston or Savannah and starting your trip there, go to Atlanta instead which is a big hub of Delta Airlines. For example, at the moment I’m at the stage of planning my trip to Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia and I will definitely fly to Atlanta rather than Nashville, Louisville or Cincinnati.

Nowadays most people (including myself) search for and buy tickets themselves online. I really don’t see the point of visiting the travel agent any more as long as you are not planning some complicated multi-stop itinerary around the world with a few different airlines.

You can obviously check the prices directly on the airlines’ websites, but there are thousands of websites offering searches among the multiple airlines and travel agents. My favourites are Kayak, Skyscanner and Travelsupermarket. However, I never completely trust them. Theoretically, they are supposed to redirect you to the sellers’ sites offering the best deals. I tend to check the chosen flights directly with the airlines as well since sometimes you can get them even cheaper than on the price comparison sites. A couple of years ago Travelsupermarket was offering flights to Washington DC directly from the British Airways site, which were £25 more expensive than the same flight if searched for on the BA site. Also, some of the cheapest offers always seem to sell out as soon as you click on them. It might be my Polish cynicism, but they are probably there to redirect you to some of these sellers’ websites. However you look at it, the more you search, the more you can save, so be patient.

Remember that most of the cheap deals have severe restrictions when it comes to changing dates and other details once you book. If you have to change something it will increase your fare significantly, if it is possible at all. So only book your flights when you are 100% sure when you are going. Some people still recommend booking flights as far ahead as possible, but I realised that it doesn’t really make sense to book flights many months before any more. I usually follow prices online for a few months and buy them no more than two months or even six weeks in advance of my travels. I never noticed any huge price hikes and sometimes they even drop. For example, I booked my flight to Atlanta about two months before flying out, but I noticed that 2-3 weeks before my trip prices dropped a good £30 or more. Damn, I should have waited even longer.

Another way of saving money is to travel light. I still remember the good old days when you could take two pieces of checked luggage up to 32kg each. Unfortunately, in these stringent times all of the airlines cut their allowance to one piece of up to 23kg. If you want to take something like camping equipment or other heavy stuff, think twice about it as it might be cheaper to buy it in the US rather than paying the airlines for extra bags. Especially when so many things are actually cheaper in the US than in the UK.

At the end a few words about formalities when crossing the US border. Most Europeans don’t need to apply for a paper visa as most Western European countries are covered by the visa waiver program. You still have to fill in the ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) form online and you should do it at least 72 hours before you fly.

The rest of us (including me) need a valid US visa to enter America. You’d better apply well in advance of your travels to avoid disappointment.

At the American airport remember that security officials and immigration officers are among the most humourless people on the entire planet. It is to a degree true about immigration and security personnel all over the world (especially in my native Poland), but Americans are definitely in the top of this league. It is especially weird as Americans are normally very outgoing people. Having said that, I have never had a particularly bad experience with US Immigration. They tend to be professional and efficient, even if sometimes they ask weird questions. Once in Boston, the officer asked me why I was not married to my girlfriend. What the hell was I suppose to answer?

After immigration you collect your bags and go through customs. Remember that you can’t bring fruit, vegetables, meat or any fresh produce into the USA. Theoretically, you can be fined a good few hundred dollars just for forgetting about the apple in your bag.

Finally, you are out of the airport and ready to go. From my experience it takes about an hour (plus/minus 15 min) to clear most US airports. My usual next step is the car rental agency desk. More about this next time.

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Author: Gregor Swiderek

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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America is, in a way, a country designed for people on the move. That’s probably why it is one of the places where finding a place to stay is ridiculously easy. But still, let me give you some tips.

As I usually travel on a rather small budget, information here will be most relevant to other low budget travellers but I’ll give some general advice as well.

So, how do I organize my accommodation? In short, I don’t. OK, I’m joking, but only a bit. Continue reading Accommodation USA

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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Mississippi is a difficult word, especially for a non-native English speaker like me. All those double consonants are impossible to memorise – only after some years did I learn how to spell it. It is also one of those names which fires up your imagination. When I was young I looked at maps of the USA, and this great river always caught my attention. Then there were books (anyone remember Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer?) and movies which placed the Mississippi deep in my subconscious. Finally this summer I decided to visit central USA, including the Mississippi River.

I started my trip in a rather unusual place – Davenport, Iowa. Now, it is not where most people would start travelling alongside the Mississippi. Iowa in general is not a state where tourists go in droves. In my case, I had to cross it on my way from the Great Plains of the Dakotas and Nebraska to the Great River itself. Davenport didn’t look like a city worth stopping at (apart from a night in a cheap motel) so I immediately crossed to Moline, Illinois, which I would probably would’ve passed as well if I hadn’t got lost…

But let’s start from the beginning. I got off the highway to stop at the Illinois Welcome Center. Most states in the US operate tourist information centres alongside the major interstates. They are usually real mines of useful, as well as completely useless, information, brochures and glossy magazines. After getting all I needed, I tried to go back to the interstate 80 but somehow ended up in Moline. Driving up and down trying to get back to the highway I found a place called The John Deere Pavilion. John Deere is one of the great American icons. In the Midwest, a John Deere baseball cap is as important part of local clothing as the Stetson hat is in the American west. The pavilion itself, apart from the great gift shop full of toy machines and clothing, offered the chance of getting inside some seriously big machines. Where else could you try how it feels to sit in the driver’s seat of a combine harvester or a 8345RT tractor with caterpillars instead of wheels? If you have even a bit of child left in you, don’t skip this place!

From Moline I used main roads that were away from the river to get to Hannibal, Missouri where the real trip along the Mississippi started. Hannibal is a small, quintessentially American town, famous for being the place where Mark Twain grew up. The town became the inspiration for the fictional town of St Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Nowadays the biggest attractions in town are those connected to the great writer himself, like his boyhood home, a museum, and the J M Clemens Justice of the Peace office (Twain’s father’s office). The best way of experiencing the town is to wander aimlessly around its few streets, enjoying the lazy atmosphere. South of town there is a viewpoint on top of the high bluff which offers great vistas of the Mississippi valley and the town of Hannibal itself. Similarly good views can be found north of downtown from the top of the lighthouse. Yes, there is a lighthouse in Hannibal, thousands of kilometres from the nearest ocean.

The best way of following the Mississippi is to drive along the Great River Road, a well-marked scenic byway, running along almost the entire length of the river. It uses local, county and state highways on both banks of the river, as close to the water as possible. Navigation is made easy by road signs with ship’s wheel symbols, but it helps to have a detailed map as this road can be a bit more complicated than you might expect from a popular tourist route. I decided to follow the eastern branch of it, which offered a taste of the real rural Illinois: fields, farms, small towns, lush greenery, and heat.

After passing the towns of Quincy and Warsaw, I arrived at Nauvoo. It is a small town, with a population of few more than 1,000, but historically it’s quite important. In 1839 a group of Mormons settled there. Among them was Joseph Smith, founder of the religion, and Brigham Young, who after the death of Smith led Mormons west to the Utah territory. Because of its importance to the Mormon religion, you can probably see more Utah licence plates here than anywhere else outside of Utah itself. Today Nauvoo is a very well-preserved town with a number of historic houses and local businesses looking almost exactly as they did 160 years ago. There is also a replica of the historic Mormon temple, which was built in 2002 but looks identical to the original one.

North of Nauvoo I continued along the Great River Road, but it wasn’t the most spectacular stretch. The land was flat and I couldn’t see the river from the road as it was hidden behind the tall levees. I spent the night in some forsaken campground where mosquitoes wanted to eat me alive.

In northern Illinois things got much more interesting again. High bluffs appeared on both banks of the river with the road squeezed between them and the Mississippi itself. One of the best places to explore this varied topography is the Mississippi Palisades State Park, where short hiking trails lead from parking lots to scenic viewpoints. You can see the river valley stretching for miles north and south. Apart from the spectacular topography, northern Illinois (and Iowa on the western bank of Mississippi) offer some interesting small towns such as Fulton, Clinton, Savanna and –Iocated on an island in the middle of the river – Sabula.

The most famous of the towns is actually a few miles away from the Mississippi. At its peak in the mid-19th century, Galena was a booming mining community with a population of 14,000. Now with only 3,500 inhabitants, it is a much quieter place. Its downtown is almost completely preserved and is full of historic houses and churches located on the hilly terrain. One of the main attractions is the home of general Ulysses S Grant, the civil war hero. The town is perfect for lazy strolls, doing some shopping or having a nice meal. It is also very photogenic, but take note that the best time to take pictures is in the earlier part of the day as the town is located mostly on the north-western slopes and in the afternoon you will have the sun against you.

After Galena I left the Mississippi River valley for a while and moved inland to southern Wisconsin. My destination was the town of New Glarus. As its name suggests, it was established as a Swiss community. Even today, in the countryside surrounding the highway leading there, you can spot farms proudly displaying Swiss flags next to the American ones. The town itself offers quite a bizarre experience with some pseudo-alpine buildings located downtown. In some moments you can get really confused; are we still in America? But all this unashamed commercialisation hides a community with a really interesting history. You can explore it in the Swiss Historical Village which preserves some original wooden buildings from the early pioneer times. Afterwards you can have a pizza in pizzeria Ticino, which looks exactly like it was moved from the Alps.

After continuing my detour to Madison, where I visited the Wisconsin State Capitol (the fourth capitol during my trip this year), it was time to get back to the river. In Wisconsin the Great River Road follows state highway 35 and is a really spectacular drive. One place which you definitely shouldn’t miss is Wyalusing State Park at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers, just south of the Prairie du Chien. It offers truly spectacular views from the 150m tall bluffs, on top of which you can find prehistoric Indian mounds. The campground in the park has some of the best tent sites I have seen in my life. They are located right on the bluffs’ edge so you can have spectacular views practically from your tent. Unfortunately they have to be reserved in advance, so I couldn’t stay there. And that caused other problems; there was some convention or gathering going on the weekend I was there, so all the hotels in Prairie du Chien, and also in the town of McGregor on the Iowa side of the river, were full. I ended up driving over 20 miles west, deep inland to rural Iowa, to the town of Postville where I stayed in the worst motel I have experienced in my life – dodgy, dirty, creepy, with bad service and not as cheap as you would imagine.

Anyway, the following morning, the weather was great and I got back to the river in a good mood indeed. North of Prairie du Chien lies the best part of the Mississippi Valley. Almost all the way to the outskirts of St Paul (about 200 miles away) you encounter one amazing vista after another. The valley is also dotted with tranquil small towns like Ferryville, Genoa, Stockholm, De Soto and Alma, which usually contain just a few houses, a bar or two, a local shop and sometimes a gas station, squeezed between the bluffs and the river. It is also fun to cross the river on the steep, narrow steel bridges linking Wisconsin with northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. Especially for a road and bridge geek like me, it is like paradise.

One of the best spots to enjoy great views of the Mississippi valley is Garvin Heights City Park in Winona. Located just off the US Hwy 61, this viewpoint offers an amazing vista of Winona, which is located in the middle of the valley, and the surrounding countryside. Equally good views can also be found from the Wabasha Overlook on the outskirts of the town of Wabasha, a few miles up the river. The difference is that you can drive to the viewpoint in Winona but you have to climb to the one in Wabasha.

From Wabasha, the Great River Road continues towards St Paul, passing a string of small towns like Lake City (where I can recommend a great campground), Red Wing and Hastings in Minnesota, and Prescott in Wisconsin. As I got closer to St Paul and Minneapolis, these small places became more gentrified. Cafes got trendier (and fuller of people showing off their laptops), galleries more common, and instead of pick-up trucks you could spot more flashy cars (even some European ones!) It’s all nice but lacks the authenticity and grittiness of places located further south. Finally I ended my trip in St Paul. It is the capital of Minnesota so I could add another state capitol to my growing list.

It was my dream for many years to follow the Mississippi river. I read the books about it, explored maps, watched movies… And I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed seeing it in reality. The Mississippi valley offers spectacular topography, nice small towns, interesting history and friendly people. What else do you need for a great holiday?

During this trip I used Moon handbooks to: Mount Rushmore & The Black Hills, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They are really packed with useful information. For navigation I used DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteers. They are published for each state and were most helpful when I was exploring small county highways alongside the Mississippi river; especially in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Author: Gregor Swiderek

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