After taking it easy the last few days, I finally got my ass out there and explored Berat a little today.

In fact, I was up by 8am this morning.   I was helped by the fact the room was pretty stuffy as apparently the power (and the a/c) went out sometime during the night.

So, yeah, I was up at 8:00 and out the door by 9:00.

There’s a walking tour here in Berat that runs at both 10am and 5pm.   My initial thought was to take the one later in the day as I figured the temperatures would be lower.

Turns out it was 25C at 10am and the forecast was for 33C at 5pm so day tour it was.

I went out to another cloudless sky.   Literally not a single cloud in the sky.   And not just today, but all 3 days I’ve been here in Berat.

I won’t lie, I’m kinda missing those warm cloudy days in Macedonia last week.   So nice.

Anyway, after all the talk about the walking tour, you know what I did?

I decided to just pass on it and go up to the Berat Castle instead.

It’s one of the stops on the tour, and frankly, it’s all I really wanted to see in town so why not go up at my own pace.

I’ll take a walking tour in Tirana when I arrive there in a couple days to get all the stories and history about Albania then.

A morning hike

It’s hard to miss Berat Castle as it sits atop a hill overlooking the entire city.

To get there was a bit of a hike taking just after a half hour but at least the route up was on a cobblestone road so it was manageable.

As I walked up the secluded road, I came to realize that I was approaching the castle from the rear side while everyone else was going there from the other side.

Explains why I saw no one on my way up to the castle.

It was kind of nice doing it solitary though and to add to it, there was some sort of memorial happening on the street down below where they were laying wreaths and playing sombre music.

It was just a cool vibe walking up the hill to the castle.

And it gave me time to think about things.   Mostly about what I want my future trips (and blogs) to be about and how I can approach some different business ideas from a travel standpoint.

I’ve actually been thinking about that alot the last few days and I’m pretty excited for what the future holds for me.

Anyway, on to the castle…

Berat Castle

When you get to the top of the hill, you’re presented with a little village up there surrounded by fortress walls.

Inside there are multiple restaurants, a couple of churches, and lots of people selling their “hand made” and “traditional” souvenirs.

I took a walk around for a bit.   There’s just something about seeing old buildings and rock formations that just gets my camera clicking.

For lunch (or is it breakfast?), I had a roast chicken with rice.

Man, with the exception of one meal I had here, the food here is pretty amazing.

Afterwards I walked back down to the city.   This time I took the shorter, more direct route which only took about 20 minutes.

Lazy afternoon (again)

I actually got back to the hostel by noon and, ya know what, that was my only plan for the day.

I was faced with another afternoon of just doing nothing and, honestly, I was kind of okay with it.

The power was actually still out and with the exception of a quick 15 minute flicker at 1pm, it didn’t come back on again until 3:30 in the afternoon.

What do you do when you have nothing to do and the power’s out?

Well, if I was still traveling with Nathan, we’d have played cards all afternoon but, sadly, I haven’t played cards since he went back home.

Nope.   Instead, I continued my binge watch of Umbrella Academy.   I had never watched it before and I had downloaded all the episodes before I left for this trip.

And, what can I say?   I’m hooked!

Two dinners

At 4:30 I went out for dinner (or is it lunch?).   I went back to the place I went to yesterday and got some more grilled goodness.   This time I had pork riblets, grilled veggies, and fries.

So good.

Then I hung at the hostel some more and, ya know what I did?

Yeah, I went out for a second dinner at 7pm cause, I don’t know, I was still hungry.

I was excited to go back to the other grill place I went to yesterday.   The one where I had an amazing dinner with Fré last night.

This place is a tad more generous with their meat portions.   I had the pork ribs, one sausage, a side of fries and a peach ice tea all for 1100lek ($15).   Crazy!

And, yeah, I know I ate alot of food tonight and, ya know what, I don’t care!

I’m on vacation dammit and I’ll do what I want!

Hehe.

I did actually feed a fair amount of my pork and almost all of my sausage to a couple cats that had cozied up to me.

Feeding cats in Albania.

What a great day…