From Bulgaria through Macedonia, Kosovo to Albania with camper - day one
What’s it like to travel 600 km in a single day with two kids and a dog, in a camper van without air conditioning in 35-degree heat, without a driver’s license, and to end up in the middle of a terrible storm that flooded the camper van and nearly overturned it? read about it in the next part of our Camper Van Trip to the Western Balkans and Italy.
More information about the route, costs and all travelogues of the trip can be found HERE.
First day
Day 1: Sofia - Skopje - 260 km. ( 4:00 hours)
Skopje - Kosovo - Shëngjin (Albania) - 335 km. ( 4:30 hours )
The big camper adventure started from Sofia, where we rented the camper officially, signed a contract, shook hands with the owners and wished for an accident-free trip. I should mention here that we lost my husband's driver's license as soon as we left Sofia - you read more about that Here.
The program for the first day was quite difficult and boring. We had to travel about 700 km in total through Macedonia, Kosovo and reach the city of Shengjin in Albania, located on the Adriatic coast.
Macedonia
We crossed the border into Macedonia very quickly. Unfortunately, the “first-class” roads from the moment we entered the country until we left were in terrible condition—one pothole after another, and extremely poorly maintained.
We were supposed to stop in the center of Skopje to look at Mother Teresa's birth house, but after seeing how slow we are moving with the camper, we decided that we wouldn't have enough time and left it for the next time. The parking lot I had marked for a stop in Skopje had the following coordinates:
41. 993999 21.4373
N 41°59’38.39″ E 21°26’14.28”
It’s located in the center of Skopje, in the shade, and costs 1–2 euros per hour. Mother Teresa’s House is open from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Another interesting landmark we had planned to visit was a huge aqueduct located 2 km north of Skopje, in the direction of Kosovo.
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KOSOVO
Bulgarian civil liability insurance is not valid in Kosovo. Therefore, upon entering the country at the border, you must purchase local civil liability insurance for 15 euros per week. This is the price for both campers and passenger cars, and there is no cheaper option. This insurance serves the same purpose as Bulgarian liability insurance in the event of a traffic accident. Another question is, in the event of a traffic accident, whose side will the police officer take—the foreigner’s or the local citizen’s?
Unlike the roads in Macedonia, as soon as we entered Kosovo, we came across highways—they were simply amazing. New, wide roads, built high above a river. Towering mountains all around. Modern roads, well-lit tunnels. The truth is that the Americans are pouring money into Kosovo, and this is most evident in the country’s infrastructure. Unfortunately, aside from the highways, we didn’t see anything else of interest there. People continue to live in poverty. Along the roads in populated areas, there’s a lot of overgrown vegetation everywhere; the green spaces aren’t maintained at all, and there are no sidewalks. The highway from Kosovo continues directly to Albania and passes by a huge, panoramic lake surrounded by tall, beautiful mountains.
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ALBANIA
The roads in Albania are good, but as a country we were not impressed by anything special - neither architecture nor atmosphere. We only had a few hours there, so it's entirely possible to be wrong. According to the information I had found in advance, the nice beaches of Albania, which are very similar to the Greek ones, are located in its southern part. However, we were in the northern part and were not at all fascinated by the color of the sea water - it was like on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.
Arriving in the city around 8:30 p.m., we first went to the following coordinates with the idea of spending the night there. The place is free and very wild right next to the beach.
41.782154 19.603163
N 41°46'55.75″ E 19°36'11.38″
We did a quick evening bath in the sea and enjoyed the beautiful sunset. There, our daughter saw crabs in the sea and was so startled that after that on every beach we went, she asked us if she had crabs.
However, the area was very, very remote, surrounded by fields, so we decided to drive the camper back along the same street to a slightly more urbanized part—near the Niko Hotel, which, by the way, offers free Wi-Fi (the password is nikola16). We had just parked when some locals came over to tell us not to park there because it was prohibited—or at the very least, we could spend the night there, but we had to move the camper the next day as soon as dawn broke. So that’s what we did. We slept there and slipped away the next day.
In general, there is no problem to stop anywhere on the entire coastal street, but only for an overnight stay, as parking spaces are paid there during the day. It is also important to choose a place away from the bars as bar owners may ask you to pay.
The main things that can be seen in northern Albania, and for a short time, are the bunkers that are left over from the Second World War and which bunkers are supposedly everywhere in Albania, but the truth is that we did not see such bunkers. Also, another thing you can do while in Albania is to buy cheap olives and olive oil, which according to some travelers and travelogues read are found everywhere again on the roads, but we such people and such olives did not see either. 🙂 The truth is that we passed through Albania super transit and we have not looked for anything to eat, do nothing there and look at nothing. Just enough to arrive from Sofia to the Adriatic coast and sleep there.\
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First night in the camper / for a little while to be the last /
The camper was still hot and hard to stay inside. Next to the camper was a grove of about 40-50 meters, and then beyond it was the beach. We took a very short walk in the area where we had stopped, prepared something in a hurry to eat and went to sleep.
Oh, what a night we had in store…!
Our first night in the camper wasn't just a nightmare—it was a very, very bad nightmare. And it wasn't because we were sleeping in a camper, or because it was cramped or uncomfortable, but because a terrible storm broke out outside that nearly overturned the camper!
Two or three weeks before our trip to Plovdiv, where we live, there was a terrible storm with an awful lot of thunder. The flashes flashed constantly one after the other - there must have been about 30-40 flashes within a minute. It was something really scary. And then we said to ourselves that if something like this happens to us while we are on a camper, we don't know exactly how we will survive it. Well, the exact same thing happened to us.
What a terrible storm! Lightning flashed one after another, and thunderclaps rang out—some closer, some farther away—while we were parked next to the sidewalk under some trees. The whole camper was shaking from side to side; we felt like it was going to tip over. As if the storm weren’t enough on its own, to top it all off, one of the skylights on the ceiling (the one above the bed behind the driver’s seat) came loose and started swinging open and lifting up in the strong wind. There was no way we could fix the hatch cover during the storm, since it was too dangerous to go outside, so we waited until morning to repair it.
Otherwise, until then, the whole bed got wet from the incoming water. We were trying to plug the opening with pillows, as a result of which all the pillows were wet, as well as half of our sheets and covers. Thank God at least the camper didn't turn around. The next day, we found out from relatives and acquaintances in Bulgaria that the same storm had passed through Greece, where unfortunately there were also inverted campers.
The next morning, the view from the window was shocking. There were fallen branches, overturned lounge chairs, toppled umbrellas, and an enormous amount of trash everywhere.
TO THE NEXT TRAVELOGUE —-> DAY 2: MONTENEGRO
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