Holiday plans: Albania, anyone? - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Jan 6, 2006
My school never gives time off without it being absolutely necessary, such as when a border needs to be crossed for visa reasons (one day off), Christmas (2 days off, though it was apparently 5 last year) and new years (1st of Jan is a public holiday). And, of course, the muslim holidays, like next week. I have 5 days off! So, instead of staying here and climbing our mountains of uni work (Kate's in exam time now, and I have 6000 words of assignments to write in the next 3 weeks) we are doing the sensible thing, and flying to Albania for the week. Well, for a few days, at least. We're flying to Tirana (the capital) on Monday morning, and fly back on thursday. We didn't have much choice - there seems to be only a few flights a week. At least with Turkish Air. Even if Albania does have an airline, I'm not sure I want to fly with them, so I didn't bother doing any further research! Three nights there should give us enough time to explore the capital and possibly the two towns near it that my guide book highly recommends. And apparently that is about as much of the country as you need to see! Except the beaches, of course, and as it's mid-winter, I don't think we really need to see them! Not sure why the idea of Albania has really captured my imagination, but I am really excited to be going to such an unusual place. It probably has far too much to do with the Dilbert comic strip, and its depictiong of "Elbonia". Oh dear...