Pedalbania
Cycling in Albania - May 2018
Petran – Gjirokaster 28 May 2018 Distance: 44km; total ascent: 392m Stayed at: Hotel Çajupi, Gjirokaster This was our easiest, shortest, laziest day: just 44 kilometres in the morning, mostly downhill or flat with only a few small blips. A … Continue reading →
Farma Sotira – Petran 27 May 2018 Distance: 52.7km; total ascent: 749m Stayed at: Guest House Hani i Colit It was another fine morning as we left Farma Sotira after breakfast (no trout involved). We had been promised a splendid … Continue reading →
Korçë – Farma Sotira, nr Gërmenj 26 May 2018 Distance: 61.4km; total ascent: 1315m We were taken in the minibus from the hotel to a layby just on the further edge of Korçë. Here we tried our bikes for the first … Continue reading →
Arrival in Pogradec 25 May 2018 Staying in Hotel Millennium, Tushemisht, Pogradec. After catching a ridiculously early bus from Oxford to Gatwick, a three and a half hour flight to Tirana and a 3 hour transfer in an 8-seater minibus … Continue reading →
‘Broken April’ is the other book by celebrated Albanian author Ismail Kadare recommended as ‘approachable’ by my guidebook to Albania (‘Chronicle in Stone’ is the other). Set in the 1920s or 1930s it describes the way of life in the … Continue reading →
I’ve had to concede I’m not a cycling Flandrian. The cold grey windy months that should have been leading through Spring to early Summer have deterred me from getting out on the bike and building up the miles in preparation … Continue reading →
If I hadn’t been planning a holiday in Albania later this year I would very probably never have heard of Ismail Kadare. His Wikipedia entry says Kadare is regarded by some as one of the greatest European writers and intellectuals … Continue reading →
This is a book of nine short stories, written at various times and some of them previously published elsewhere. It is impressive that they are all very different: settings range in place and time from mythological Greece to a settlement … Continue reading →
I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve booked a week’s cycling holiday in Albania at the end of May. Since then I’ve also signed up for the BikeOxford 80-mile sportive which is on the Sunday before a friend and … Continue reading →
This is one of those must-read books which I somehow never got round to until now. It’s one of Bradbury’s early works, written in 1953 under the shadow of The Bomb and the beginnings of the Cold War; it has … Continue reading →