The Balkan's Continued - Albania - Ottoman Berat, Day 2.

I had read about the Hotel Mangalemi, before I passed it as i stood in the ‘Linar 1’ bus to the centre of Berat. More about Mangalemi later. The taxi from my hotel in Tirana, took me to a bus station where the only sign that it was a bus station was a information board showing the timings of busses. Without a single human being in a radius of 100 metres, and certainly no busses, the driver had to shout out to a couple of guys sitting in a cafe outside, which sounded like “hey fellows”, the guys never looked and were busy in their board game as vapour came out of their mouths with the morning crisp sunlight hitting their faces. “Hey, guys, where the F### is the bus to Berat going from”. I think the guys only replied coz they heard the F word. However in the next 10 mins, I found out that the directions were based on the F word and they were wrong. This time the driver was more like “excuse me” as he asked an elderly man on the road who was busy with a group discussion, and in return everyone around him replied but the man just smoked and smiled. At least they all pointed in the same direction! 

In a few minutes I was on a bus that had been tagged Berat. It was a cold winter morning and although I wanted to wait out, I chose to keep myself warm on my seat in the old coach. Outside, the guy who was the conductor, kept on with his Berat shouts, as each public bus came in with people wanting to go somewhere. This was my first bus journey in Albania and I didn't know how things worked here. Whether the bus leaves on the time it is supposed to, or it leaves when it feels full to the driver? With only 50 % of the seats taken and a mere 10 min delay (according to the scandinavian standards) we left the ‘hard to find’ bus station in Tirana. 

Within 15 minutes the apartment blocks started being replaced by country houses and most of them had the Albanian flag on them. The blood red and on it two eagles facing to their sides would be a common sight, I would come to know, even in Kosovo. With only 80 kms to cover I soon understood why the bus was to take 2.5 hours to touch Berat. People, they kept on getting in, and for some reason like my travels in Bosnia and Serbia, baring the seat next to me, all the seats in the coach were taken. I have to say, that no matter how much I like my space, I did not understand why no one wants to sit next to me :-). ‘India’ was always an ‘Indiaaaaa’ when I replied to the locals when they asked me “so where from are you”. 

Unlike Serbia however the driver and conductor kept to the ‘no smoking’ norms in the vehicle and that was a relief.

The Ottoman Houses I was looking for ..

“You might even get back to Tirana in the night”, had said my travel agent in the morning. In the beginning I didn't consider that to be a possibility but when the conductor shouted ‘Berat, last stop’ I had been expecting something more than what I saw around me. Ottoman houses, white washed and idyllically placed on the hillside with a river running alongside was the image I was looking for. All I saw around me were apartment complexes in the of the dust that rising from the road. 

With both my hands on the stroller and my eyes still searching for Berat, Linar 1 pulled up in front of me. The people got in, and I did the same. In just about 5 minutes the river came in view and in another 2 came the houses on the hill. The apartment complexes were left behind and what was ahead of me was worth the Unesco World Heritage status. 

With not knowing where to get down, I just worked my way through the crowd as soon as I saw the ‘Mangalemi hotel’ on a cobblestone street leading up. I had read about it the earlier night in the lonely planet and I loved the first impression of this old Ottomon house, which only got better with the evening. The owner was kind enough to give me a Eu 15 price for the night for a very comfortable space dressed in wood. It was specially nice to see a decent space after spending the earlier night in what they call a ‘by the hour’ hotel in Tirana. 

The Stone Bridge 

I had only a couple of hours before night fall and so my shoes never came off in the room. It took me close to 3.5 hours of walking around the town which mostly involved hiking up the palace hill. At the end of it, I was happy to come back to the hotel and to reach a conclusion about Albania. 

What was supposed to be a lite bite at 5 pm, turned out to be a series of bites for the next 5 hours. The owner was a 28 yr old guy and was translating a very interesting conversation between me and his mother who was the hand behind my being glued to the wooden seat from 5 to 10 pm. The food .. what can I say!! She had a limited menu of 7 - 8 things and I tried them all. “She say’s she is very happy to see you eat, but seriously I never thought you could eat so much” said the son. “Even me” I said, with the walnut dessert still on my tongue. Maybe ‘no beer’ helped, or maybe it was just the idea of ‘Albania in a platter’ which the woman said I should go along with. The cosmetic beauty of Berat was wonderfully presented in the warmth of its people. A combination that always works to make a place welcoming. 

This is the way to serve a cold Rakija 

Berat was what I had wanted Albania to be and that night I slept in peace knowing I would come back to Berat again.