Monday, July 7
My accommodation again
My room includes the open window at the centre of the zoom photo and you can probably identify it on the wide angle one.
Lunch
Frappe 60 lek + ham sandwich 70 lek = 130 lek or about 75p.
I might come and live here, I could live like a prince. One of my objectives is to find out how much property costs, just out of curiosity.
Health and safety
You have got to look where you are walking all the time. There are holes in the pavement wherever you go.
A great victory I expect
Something to do with kicking the Italians out but it was too complicated for me to understand.
Universities
I sense a great optimism here, these are the universities of Vlore and Berat. There is obviously a great investment in the education of the young.
The castle
I climbed up about 250m to the castle. Magnificent views all round, it's a huge 25 acre site.
Why do they always put castles at the top of the hill and make them so difficult to get into?
The other side of Berat
There is an awful lot of housing like this erected by the communists to create a Marxist worker's paradise, it's really grim, but nowhere does it feel unsafe to walk. There are many people trying to scratch a living by selling things on the side of the pavement, mostly what they are offering is junk, like you would get in a car boot sale, or they are cooking corn on the cob on a barbeque. There are very few beggars though which is unlike Greece. The young man who told me his wages yesterday said there was no such thing as a government handout to the unemployed, his eyes opened in disbelief when I told him that in the UK you got money for being unemployed.
Donkey transport.
The streets are so narrow and steep that the best way to transport building materials is with a donkey.
Phone cover
To show the locals how impessed I am with their country I've bought an Albanian phone cover. Whenever I get to talk to any of the locals I produce my phone and get smiles and thumbs up all round.
The miracle of modern technology
I'm in a restaurant that is quite posh, it's the only one that I've found in Berat that looks suitable. This town, despite being fabulously picturesque, is grindingly poor. There are hardly any tourists, which seems surprising, and I don't think the locals can afford to eat out. I discovered yesterday that the lad in a little café earned 1200 lek for a 12 hour shift. I blew 1000 lek on this meal including two bottles of beer - about £5.70 - but nearly a day's wages is too expensive so they sit in street cafés drinking water and expresso coffee.
I had to use the Google translate app to decipher the menu and, when it arrived the meal was absolutely delicious, the best tasting food I've had, in a restaurant, for a very long time, though that may be the sunshine and holiday effect coupled with the fact that I'd not eaten much since breakfast.
Breakfast
Looks better than it tastes. The white margarine seems to have candle wax as a major ingredient and the cheese looks like feta but is something else. Still, mustn't grumble, it's a nice view.
