Week 5

Day 29

Saturday 27th July 2019

Montenegro to Albania.

We set off in search of food and found a small motel at the side of the road - the owner didn’t speak English so I confidently ordered in German. She delivered 2 fried eggs, a hot dog, tomatoes, cucumber, eggy bread, jam, more bread, mustard, a lump of cream with something in it and coffee - as you can see I'm fluent (not).The mountains where bigger but green and beautiful as we headed to the coast - where we got stuck in a traffic jam. We weaved in and out of the traffic which was either blocking the inside or the outside. It's hard to weave on a tandem but London traffic is good practice. We passed castles by the coast, monasteries and the odd relic! It was hilly so not much flat and the flat we did have was so busy with traffic. We took a ferry to get to the next stretch of coast. The water was every shade of blue it was magical. We had 3 big hills - the last one being the hardest. It was hot and hard work - and slow because we couldn't go that fast down hill cause of the volume of traffic. We stopped at a cafe with views of the sea and coast until it got cooler. Setting off for the last hill we saw a puppy on the busy road about to be run over. We stopped and I got him. He was lovely - already walking with a limp from no doubt an encounter with the road. We contemplated taking him with us and in any other circumstances we would. A man from the US said there are loads of stray dogs. We put him in a fenced garden with some biscuits. It was sad. The feel of Montenegro is different- more like travelling in South America than Europe. Beautiful but with more poverty. We headed on to the border. Jumping the long queue and stopping in a motel just in Albania.

Day 30

28th July 2019 Sukobin to Dobresh

Albania. We have been on the road for a month. We’ve cycled well over 2000 miles across Europe and although we are still in Europe, Albania