Feta, Friendship, and Final Views: Our Last Full Day in Beautiful Albania

Albania Mission Trip Day 9

Scott Gureck

Aug 03, 2024

Saturday, 13 July 2024

This morning we woke up to this gorgeous view of the Albanian Alps here in Theth:

Here’s where we are in the Alps:

The view from the outside staircase to our room:

The lovely breakfast spread:

Fresh feta cheese. Incredible!

After breakfast, we did a little sightseeing walkabout.

Here is the Roman Catholic church…

That appears in the bottom right of last night’s photo:

All of Theth is Roman Catholic and has been for centuries except during communism when Albania was an atheist nation by law.

Paulin Veleciku speaking with a musician playing near the church.

Paulin’s father enjoyed one year of freedom from communism before dying in a work accident in 1992. Born in Theth, he’s buried in the church cemetery.

Our next stop is Reconciliation Tower — right above Paulin and Altin’s heads in the distance:

The tower and surrounding property have been in the same family since it was built over four centuries ago and our tour guide today was the owner’s daughter. She spoke perfect English and is about to head to college to study tourism.

As you step through the door above, the first floor is not what I might have expected:

The reconciliation level is on the second floor which is accessed by a steep ladder:

We did not go up to the third floor due to a backup of other guests we held up by talking too long with our lovely guide, but I did grab a couple of pics from the top of the stairs:

We stayed at this particular hotel because Paulin’s brother Elvis (I’m probably not spelling it correctly but it’s how it sounded to me) works there.

Shortly before noon, we headed south toward Durrës where we will have a very short night before flying out of Tirana tomorrow.

Recognize a common theme?

The distance between Theth and the nearest town is several kilometers of winding roads and hairpin turns like I have never seen in my life. It’s difficult enough by car. I cannot imagine doing it by donkey — which is, of course, how it’s been done for thousands of years.

I know I shouldn’t, but I just have to go here…

This entire road is about one and a half lanes wide. So with EVERY opposing vehicle, you have to negotiate passing by each other. So imagine being these guys…

A little before 3 pm, we stopped at a wonderful restaurant to have a late lunch.

After lunch, made a very brief stop in Shkodër so that Altin could say hello to his mother.

So much to see and do on a future trip!

We then drove a little bit south of Shkodër to meet up again with Paulin, Joe, Charlotte and Tim who had gone straight to a caffeination stop to wait for us.

Frieda and I, being coffee junkies, definitely like this priority Albanians have on maintaining proper caffeine levels!

We then headed further south to Kurbin where we dropped off Paulin, who was then going to catch a bus back to Gjilan, Kosovo.

This goodbye was hard given the wonderful week we had experienced together.

Now down to just six of us — Altin Kurraj, Joe, Charlotte and Tim Bubar, Frieda, and me — we headed to our hotel in Durrës.

Upon our arrival, we were finally able to meet Altin’s wife Juliana.

We got our room key…

And checked into our room.

This is the same hotel we stayed at our first night and we would highly recommend it to anyone traveling to Durrës.

Here’s the view from our balcony:

At this point, it was almost 6 pm, and we have to depart the hotel at 2:15 am — yes AM — to head to the Tirana International Airport. We had eaten a very late and heavy lunch so we decided we would all go have gelato, then call it a night.