Circumstances

Downtown Tirana: work in progress

Albania. Hardly the first country that comes to mind if you're on the lookout for an attractive holiday destination. And that's a shame, because no one should miss out on its spectacular scenery, especially Lake Ohrid in the east, home to the endangered Ohrid trout, and the isolated Bjeshkët e Namuna (Accursed Mountains) in the north, where people still indulge in the occasional vendetta and clan members sometimes lock themselves in for years on end to keep from getting their throat slit. Having said that, I did miss out on these places. As always, circumstances got in the way.

In this case, the circumstances materialised in the form of infrastructure. Or, rather, the lack of it. Oh yes, maps of Albania will show you an abundance of roads in all the familiar colours: red-and-yellow for motorways, red for main roads, yellow for secondary roads and white for local roads. But that doesn't tell you a thing about the state they're in. What looks like a convenient thoroughfare on a map might be a pothole-ridden, spoke-cracking dirt track in reality.

An empty bottle and some playing cards turn any bicycle into a motorcycle

It's not that the Albanian roads have fallen into disrepair. Well, some of them obviously have, but the worst stretches I encountered on my north-south itinerary had been artfully pummeled into something that only vaguely resembled a road. It's the Albanian way of road maintenance: first smash the existing road into smithereens, let's say the 35-kilometer stretch between the Montenegrin-Albanian border and the northern town of Shkodër, then switch off the heavy machinery, sit back, wait for a couple of extra funds to come through, and then slowly and painstakingly start resurfacing a kilometer here, five hundred meters there, all the time making sure there is enough dust flying around to turn each passerby into a grey semblance of himself.

The Hoxha doctrine: make up for in bunkers what you lack in friends

Now, it's hard to do this when you're slaloming potholes the size of kitchen sinks, but one mustn't forget that Albania has come a long way. Forty years of communist rule under Enver Hoxha left the country in a pretty bad shape, both economically and politically. At the time of his death in 1985, there wasn't enough food to go around and there was no one the country could turn to, having left the Warsaw Pact in 1968 after a nasty fallout with the Russians. Those years of isolation are splendidly symbolised by the thousands of miniature bunkers that still dot the countryside. Almost impossible to remove, these concrete igloos serve as a permanent reminder of the grim Hoxha era. Of course, things didn't improve overnight with the advent of democracy. In the nineties Albania became a major hub for people trafficking, and, judging by the sheer number of spanking new luxury cars with foreign license plates, the market for stolen cars continues to thrive. In fact, most of Albania's economy appears to be of the 'unofficial' kind. Anywhere you go, you see men hanging around in the streets, waiting for a chance to get their hands on some quick cash. One of the most popular activities is lavazh, also spelled lavazho, which comes down to a concrete platform at the roadside and a bloke with a hose waiting to clean your car. I never really got the point of this, because the moment you pull out your car is covered in the same old cloak of grey dust.

Berat: Ottoman houses and Mercedes vans

Still, crossing Albania was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Perhaps it's the people, who seem genuinely happy to see you. They wave, shout hello, sound their horn (which tends to get on your nerves once the honk rate tops one in three cars) and jump at every chance to practice their English, German, French or Italian. Some of the towns are not too bad, either. The old town of Berat was a real treat: whitewashed Ottoman houses with large rectangular windows, an overgrown but lively citadel, a full meal for two euros and a bit, and only a handful of tourists around. And camping on the bank of the Vjosë river was simply unforgettable, taking a swim in its warm shallow water while the sun set behind the mountains. So yes, even if the circumstances aren't always favourable, Albania does make for an attractive holiday destination. But one piece of advice: don't skimp on the rental car. Just go for the big four-wheel drive.