louiseinlimbo

Oh my goodness, life has been so busy that I haven’t had the time to write anything here for more than six weeks … but I don’t want to miss out the highlights from my trip back to the UK.   Firstly, a reunion of pupils from my school, marking 50 years since its opening.   I was in the very first intake, and knew that at least a couple of other people from my year would be there, so I made sure I was in the UK in time to attend.   Yes, those two friends and a few more were there, including one of two others that I had really hoped to see.   Every time I thought about the reunion, I thought “please let Nicolette and/or Helen be there”, so I was thrilled when not only was Nicolette there, but she expressed having made the same wish beforehand to see me there!   A couple of my teachers also attended, and a quick conversation with my old English History teacher revealed that we shared a love of Malian music, which was quite a surprise.   This teacher asked if he...

When I’m travelling independently (ie not on a guided tour), I still stay in hostels.   Not just any hostels, but the cheapest one in my location, provided its location is okay and customer reviews do not refer to anything exceptionally bad, such as bed bugs.   (this is the review on bookingdotcom for the hostel I stayed at in Tirana for the last week: Couldn't even spend one night there. Scored 2.0 😊 the price. ☹ this hostel was really scary. there was no clear signage around - so it was difficult to find it. no locks on doors, no curtains on beds, no security, no reception, weird smell, scary vibe. We couldn't even stay the night because of how uncomfortable we felt.) I do this for financial reasons, as the package tour part of my travel lifestyle can be pretty expensive so I need to ‘balance the books’.   But I also do so for the company – even if I won £1 million next month, I would still stay in hostels (although maybe with the very occasional night in a...

One of the main draws of Montenegro is its beautiful scenery – hills, forests, mountains, lakes – so when I received the latest marketing email from a tour company I use frequently with a one-week hiking trip in Montenegro, during this time when I was planning to visit the country, it seemed sensible to sign up for it, especially as the cost was more than covered by the refund I’d received for the cancelled Socotra trip.  I hoped that the Valbona-Theth hike in Albania had helped to prepare me physically for the hiking, and was relieved when I met the other tour group members to see that they were mostly around my age. Before meeting up with them, however, I had a few days to explore some other parts of the country – the capital (Podgorica), and the coastal town of Budva.  Podgorica has little of interest to a tourist, but it bothers me when I visit a country and don’t get to see its capital, so I gave myself a couple of days there – enough to see the sights (a clock tower, a c...

When I finally left Tirana, my first stop was Berat – also known as the ‘city of a thousand windows’.  Not sure that this is a very meaningful description if other windows are like two of the three on my hostel dorm: window frames and panes set onto the front of a brick wall (with no gap in the bricks for windows)!!  But it truly is a beautiful city, dominated by a large castle overlooking it from a hilltop.  Started by the Romans and largely re-built by the Byzantines in the thirteenth century, it contains within its walls a number of Orthodox churches, two Ottoman-era mosques, a museum and of course a number of cafes. From there I moved on to Gjirokaster, another inland city built around an old hilltop fortress, this one even larger as it includes a residential quarter within its walls as well as a former prison and a museum.  Again, there were cultural events in the city – this picture being a group of polyphonic singers on stage in one of the city squares, and ag...

Having seen North Macedonia in two relaxed weeks, I felt that I have more time left than I really need in the Balkans, so after a relaxed week in Tirana, when the hostel owner asked if I’d like to volunteer for a few weeks/months in return for a free bed plus €5 per day subsistence money, I agreed.   The hostel is quite chaotic (on my first full day here, when unfortunately I had gone out exploring so missed the drama, the police came and asked to check everyone’s ID; one guest said he had to go up to his room to get his – and he didn’t come back down.   When the police went up to investigate, they realised he must have jumped off the roof terrace onto an adjoining property and escaped … we found out later the guy was wanted by Interpol!!), sometimes noisy at night, dirty, etc, but owned and managed by a very nice Egyptian guy who I felt comfortable with.   At first it wasn’t that much work – stripping beds when people checked out, putting dirty laundry through the washin...

After a week in and around Skopje, I took the bus down to Ohrid, apparently one of the oldest settlements in Europe.  It’s beside Lake Ohrid, which is one of the oldest lakes in the world, almost certainly the oldest in Europe, and also among the deepest.  It was a lovely area to explore at leisure – with some beautiful views across the lake (still with snow-capped mountains around), and a lot of historical stuff from different periods. To give an idea of that history, this picture above, of the Church of Saints Kliment and Pantelejmon - the world's oldest Slav monastery, with 5th century Roman ruins in the foreground - was taken from Tsar Samoil's fortress, dating from the turn of the 11th century (when this was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire), but built on the site of an earlier fortification dated to the 4th century BC.  I can't pretend that I even began to get my head around the history in the town - too much for my ageing brain! - but it was all very nice ...