Our plan was to hike four hours through the mountains and up to a castle that has been restored as a restaurant overlooking the city of Tirana. We set out and our route led us into a brand new subdivision that dead ended. Oops. So we backtracked and cut through a field that backed up to a fence. Oops. Back through the wet, squishy field we went, out to the main road. We decided to just follow the road to the base of the mountain. There was SO. MUCH. TRASH. while at the same time, SO. MUCH. BEAUTY.
We climbed higher and higher until we came to an abandoned military bunker that we obviously had to explore.
We left the paved road and continued on a wet, muddy narrow grass path up the mountain. There was rain, but it wasn't terrible. We finally reached the top (after having to climb through a hole in the fence that Mark assured me existed for hikers on this "path") and the views were gorgeous.
We could see the city on one side of the mountain and the country on the other. We tried to make our way down the mountain into the country but we lost the path. This time our way was crowded with shrubs, bushes and branches, but we were able to push through it.
Finally though, we came to thickets as far as the eye could see of tall thorn bushes. We attempted to climb through but after only a minute realized that we wouldn't make it so we turned back. The sun was starting to set and we weren't sure how we were going to get down this mountain.
Mark kept pushing us farther and farther horizontally along the mountain, hoping that the thicket of thorn bushes wouldn't wrap all the way around. Sure enough, we found a passage and hurriedly climbed down the side of the mountain.
There was no clear way to the road, and multiple times we wandered into backyards of the mountain folk, only to find ourselves stuck. We made our way horizontally toward the other side of the mountain and finally found a passageway that dumped us out onto a side street that eventually led us to the main road.
At this point we had already been hiking for four hours and we were only just at the base of the mountain. We looked at a map and determined it would easily be another two hours of walking before we made it up the castle. We found a small coffee shop in the country town and convinced one of the patrons to drive us to the castle. He was greek and spoke little english, but we were able to communicate enough that we would pay him and that we would really appreciate his help. Although his gas tank was on E the entire way, we ended up making it to the base of the castle. In order to get to the top we had to climb a hundred plus stone steps that curved along the side of the mountain. The view was breathtaking. We sat in the tower of the castle to eat a well deserved dinner consisting of delicious cheese, bread, salad and lamb chops. We even enjoyed a bit of a traditional dessert from the diners at the table next to us. (They noticed us eyeballing it and heard us trying to ask our waiter what it was, so they brought some over for us to try!)
Walking down the stone steps after dark and after some wine wasn't my favorite part of the day, but we made it to the base all the same.
We taxi-ed back to Tirana and had to laugh at ourselves because the ride was a mere 15 minutes compared to the four plus hours it took us walking. Nevertheless, it was an adventure all the same. I've made it very clear to Mark however that the next time we hike there needs to be a designated trail for THE ENTIRE TIME.
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