Elizabeth Gowing has lived in the Balkans since 2006. She is the author of three travel narratives about the region -- Travels in Blood and Honey: Becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo; Edith and I: On the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo; The Rubbish-Picker's Wife: An unlikely friendship in Kosovo -- as well as of the Montenegro chapter of Fodor's guide to Croatia and surrounding areas. She is also a contributor to BBC Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent with pieces about Albania and Kosovo. She has published translations include the biography of Adem Demaci, Yugoslavia's longest-held political prisoner, and the 1912 Memoirs of Hasan Prishtina. She is co-founder of the charity, The Ideas Partnership, which harnesses the power of volunteers to tackle education, environmental and cultural heritage challenges through projects in the Balkans.
Albania has a particular thrill for anyone who can remember when it was a closed country, only to be gazed at across the narrow sea which separates it from Corfu. And those coming in search of retro Communist relics will find socialist realist art, quirky bars commemorating culture under the dictatorship, and the 750 000 nearly indestructible bunkers which still...
The Balkans – as far from Europe as you can get without leaving Europe! Your airline ticket price and your travel time to get here tell you you’ve not come far, and yet you feel a world away. These are countries where travellers can still feel like explorers, and where hospitality is not a corporate tagword but an ancient honour...
It’s impossible not to be reminded of Albania’s Communist past even if you come to the country on a beach holiday and spend it sipping Coca-Cola and embracing others of capitalism’s varied benefits. The Communist regime lasted from 1945 to 1992 in Albania and left its mark on the countryside (in terracing and bunkers), town planning and architecture, and of...
Albania is rich in water resources, from its glorious Adriatic coast running along the country’s western border to the shores of vast Lake Ohrid (the deepest lake in the Balkans) on the eastern side. This itinerary offers a route from Lake Ohrid to the highlights of the Riviera. Starting in Pogradec makes it a natural itinerary to combine with exploration...
The best way to start this itinerary to Albania’s glorious hiking and exploring the countryside is coming into Albania across the mountains from one of the bordering countries. Most dramatic is to arrive from Kosovo and the border crossing near the Kosova town of Gjakova. Day 1 From here it’s a short drive into the valley of the beautiful Valbona...
This itinerary starts in Tirana as the most common entry point to the country and explores Albania’s historical cities and towns. However, if you are arriving from Greece you will prefer to start in Korca or Saranda; if you’re arriving from Montenegro you’ll start in Shkodra. Day 1 in Albania Spend the day in Albania’s capital, Tirana. There’s the chance...
If you’re flying to Albania then your exploration of the country will start in the capital, Tirana. As the transport hub for the country even those arriving by road are likely to come through town. You need at least a day to see the city’s sights and get a perspective on the country’s history. Young for a capital city and...
Definitely the train. Managing to have a comfortable (usually!) chair while you’re still getting somewhere; being able to read and write without the travelsickness that I get even from composing an sms on motor transport; and best of all if it’s a sleeper service and you’re rocked to sleep by the rhythm and the regular motion, woken only by calls (a vivid memory of ‘dosa dosa dosaaaa’ from my first trip to India) of hawkers reminding you that you’re having an adventure. And then there’s the thrill of waking to a new place – a favourite memory was a rail trip as a student, and arriving into Venice as dawn broke over the lagoon.
I’ve been on a number of trips that have been so _boring_ I couldn’t write about them. Of course my mother would say that only boring people call things boring, but I notice that the thing that these trips had in common was barriers between me and the people living in the places I visited. Sometimes the barrier was linguistic (and in some places that seems to matter more than others) but it’s more significant when the barrier is the pane of glass in the windows of a tour bus or similar – on one trip where we spent most of the time being ‘organised’ by others I came home feeling like I’d watched a fairly interesting travel documentary on TV, but not that I’d actually had an experience myself
You travel to see new places and meet new people but I think you usually come back with more important new insights about your own place and your own self. Travel gives you new eyes for the habits and attitudes in your own life and makes you realise that that’s where strangeness is usually found, not in exotic locations, because if you concentrate you usually find that those exotic locations are inhabited by people you recognise.
Get a book out and relish a chance for some extra time reading; get a pack of cards out and take the chance for a game with my travelling companion or to find a new travelling companion (one of my most precious travel memories was the luxury of endless time and no obligations or rush during a day spent in a still, warm, dusty Mexican square with cheap lemonade and canasta between delayed buses); practise philosophy…