Vlora is located in the coastal part of Albania at the point where the Adriatic and Ionian seas meet. It was built by the ancient Greeks - the first buildings in the city date back to the 6th century BC. e.. Like the entire territory of Albania, these lands survived many invasions - Roman, Byzantine, Turkish. In the 15th century, the Vlora coast was ruled by the King of Naples for several years, until it was recaptured by the Turks. Vlora was finally liberated in 1912 and at the same time it was declared the Albanian capital for 8 years.

How to get there

You can get there from Tirana by car. The distance from the capital is 135 km along a fairly good road for Albania. There are also several roads leading to the city from neighboring Macedonia and Greece.

There is a bus from Tirana to the Vlora coast. The bus can also be reached from Athens - a daily day or night bus costs about 30 euros.

From Brindisi (Italy, south of Bari) every evening a ferry departs, arriving at the port of Vlora in the early morning.

Transport

As everywhere else in Albania: buses and vans (minibuses). There are also taxis.

Communication and Internet

There are several mobile operators operating in Albania, the most popular of which are Vodafone, as well as Telekom Albania. By presenting your passport and indicating your place of residence in Albania, you can buy a local SIM card. You can also buy a SIM card from Eagle Mobile. It belongs to the state company AlbTelecom and has good coverage, which allows you to save a lot on calls. Roaming for subscribers of the largest Russian operators is available, but expensive.

The Internet in Albania as a whole is still not very developed due to the fact that for a long time it was one of the most isolated countries in the world. Wi-Fi connections can only be found in some large hotels and libraries. In Tirana and some major cities Internet cafes are available.

Recreation places

Vlora is beaches. Their number is almost 30% of the total number of beaches in the country. Here begins the best recreation area in Albania - the Riviera of Flowers, stretching to Saranda in the very south of the country. You can swim from May to October, average temperature water 22-25°C. The beaches are mostly small-pebble and sandy with developed infrastructure.

Treatment in the city

Very close to the city of Vlore is the climatic resort of Uyet-e-Ftokhta (which means “cold water”). Many holiday homes and hotels have been built here, and children's camps are organized here in the summer. Mountains located in the northeast block access to cold winds, creating a comfortable microclimate. Diseases of the respiratory and nervous system are treated in local health resorts.

In addition, deposits of sodium chloride were found nearby. mineral waters, also containing iodine and bromine.

What to bring

Traditional Albanian souvenirs: various crafts made of carved stone and wood, textiles. Local olives and olive oil, local wine from Merlot and Cabernet grapes.

What and where to eat

This is the best seafood in Albania. Best of all, octopuses, shrimp, fish and other marine life are cooked in Paradise Beach and Makareshi restaurants.

Definitely worth a try local cuisine: kukurek (a dish of grilled offal), kumeshtor (dessert made from milk, eggs, vanilla, sugar and flour) and kharapash (meat pie with cheese and lamb, corn flour is used for dough). Lamb cooked on a spit – “Mish ne hell” – is very popular in these places.

The local cuisine is typical of coastal and mountainous areas– the highest quality grilled products. The best dishes of the region can be tasted at the Kuzum Baba restaurant. It is located on the terrace of the same name, which rises above the city and arose under the influence of sea waves.

Prices in most restaurants, as well as throughout Albania, are quite low - from 7 to 11 euros per person for a three-course dinner with local wine.

At the confluence of the Adriatic and Ionian seas water flows into sea water mineral springs. Locals take empty bottles to the beach to fill them with healing water.

Entertainment and attractions

Among the most visited attractions in Vlora are the Ethnographic and History museums, Muradiye Mosque, Independence Museum.

There are many ancient castles in and around the city, the most famous of which is Kanina. It is located 6 km from Vlora in the village of the same name in Shusika at an altitude of 380 km above sea level. It is believed that it was built in the 3rd century BC. e.

There are several caves around the city where you can see cave drawings Neolithic and Paleolithic times.

Weather by months in Vlore

The climate on the Albanian coast is typical of mediterranean sea– mild wet winters and dry hot summers. Vlora receives 2,000 hours of sunshine annually, more than any region in the country. Summer heat subsides sea ​​breeze, precipitation falls mainly in autumn and winter.

Detailed city map

The dynamics of the Albanian railway industry can be summed up in one word: primitivization. This applies to the railway network, passenger and freight transportation, the state of the track infrastructure, locomotive and carriage fleets. In particular, passenger traffic, reaching best years 4 million people per year, since the beginning of the century has been steadily and rapidly declining, and now barely exceeds the figure of 300 thousand (Wikipedia). Cancellations and reductions of trains were accompanied by the physical degradation of the road network. So, at the end of 2013, Railway even left the capital of the country: on the Vora-Tirana section, the rails were dismantled, and the station was completely destroyed.

From the once developed network of railways, in fact, there are three sections left with passenger traffic: Durres-Vlora, Shkoder-Skozet and Rogozhino-Librazd. There are only two junction stations left: Shkozet and Rogozhino.

I deliberately left the Podgorica-Shkodra cross-border section on this diagram, in the vain hope of returning passenger traffic between Albania and Montenegro before the rails there were dismantled. In my estimation, such a train would be in incredible demand among tourists, since there is no alternative in the form of reliable bus service between countries.

It is unknown how long the railway will last, at least in its current state, so without waiting for its terrible end, I decided to devote the day of April 3 to this vanishing form of transport. There was nothing to choose from: even based in the main railway center of the country - Durres, you can create only one route for a day trip back and forth, namely Durres-Librazh. The schedule of all Albanian trains is placed on one A4 page:

So, in all of Albania there are 4 (four) pairs of trains left: two on the Durres-Elbasan route, and one each on Durres-Shkoder and Durres-Vlora. It is interesting that the turnover of these trains is arranged in such a way that they all “spend the night” at different terminal stations, as a result of which only one departs from Durres in the morning - to Librazh; they can return back on the same day. If this schedule applies to a developed railway. country, an attentive reader could assume that in addition to those mentioned, there is another VBS in Albania (Vlora-Librazd), and at the Elbasan station the uncoupling of excess cars is carried out. In reality, there is no exchange of carriages: passengers from Vlora simply jump onto the agreed train at the connecting station, and all the carriages that left Durres (and it doesn’t matter if they are empty) are brought to Librazhd.

The librazhd is so small that there is nothing to do in it even during the hour while the driver is having lunch. Therefore, it was decided not to travel the entire way, but only to Elbasan, using the three hours that the train turns around at the final station for a walk around the city (there will be a separate post). The only difficulty of this whole plan was getting up at 5 am, but we managed it, and half an hour before departure we arrived at the starting point - at the train station in Durres. The station building was designed with bustling life in mind, but today the form looks disproportionate to its content:

The only function of this two-story palace is to sell tickets. Tariffs in Albania are extremely low: a 100 km trip will cost you the price of a cappuccino - about $1. I paid only 230 lek for my round-trip ticket - the light bulb that burned out the day before was even more expensive :)

Having purchased tickets, we go out onto the platform. The station, although large, does not particularly stand out from the general background:

Note the covered viaduct on the left side of the frame - this is the transition to sea ​​port, and in comparison with the neighboring entrance to the railway. station, it is much busier in the morning - the first ferry from Italy has just arrived. But let's return to our platform. Absolutely nothing has changed here in the year since I visited here for the first time:

Even in the list of destinations they didn’t cross out the currently irrelevant cities of Tirana and Pogradec :)
And our train is already standing on the first (or second?) track, hospitably opening half of each door (the second, as it turned out later, no longer opens everywhere). The Albanian train consists of two rather long two-section carriages,

slaves shunting Czech-made diesel locomotive:

The entire locomotive fleet of the country consists of exactly the same diesel locomotives, of which 61 were imported in the 70-80s. Probably half of them remain: about a dozen are employed on the lines, the rest are laid up rusting at the Xkozet and Fier stations.

As for the carriages, it is not so easy to determine their origin: I searched for a long time, but never found a single plate from the manufacturer. However, from the inscriptions on various auxiliary equipment, we can conclude that the carriages began their life in one of the German-speaking countries. In general, the car is quite comfortable, although a little broken down:

Unlike the armchairs, there was not a single living space left on the windows. All the glass is cracked, and the windows (where they exist) are fixed in the last position before breaking: closed, half-open or completely open:

This circumstance made the blogger’s task extremely difficult: driving near an open window meant freezing in 5 minutes (not the month of May), and in other places it was impossible to photograph through the window - either there were cracks or a layer of dust. In general, the situation with the glass turned out to be the same as a year ago at cable car- Albanians are not friends with transparent windows on transport.

Despite the fact that all the carriage rooms were marked 2nd class, we were not allowed into the VIP section of the first carriage - officials were traveling there: a conductor, a barmaid and a policeman with a friend. So mine evaporated last hope to pictures of views from the window. As it turned out later, you can’t take much pictures at the stops either: the train stopped for more than one minute only when the VIPs wanted to drink a cup of coffee at some station - although the driver didn’t join them, he waited patiently for ten minutes.

Here, in fact, is our driver before the start of his working day:

Everything is simple and familiar: I came to work on a bike, in ordinary civilian clothes. Soon a partner of the same kind arrived and the loading of bicycles began - it’s much easier to do this together:

Of the entire staff, only one person is wearing a railway uniform - the platform controller:

He does not check tickets, but only keeps order in the territory entrusted to him - for example, he drives old women away from the edge of the platform in front of an arriving train. As you can see even from the photo, in Durress he was a good-natured guy, but in Elbasan I came across a very strict guy - he immediately forbade me to take photographs and escorted me until the exit, so that God forbid I disobeyed :)

However, it's time to go. Elbasan is 76 kilometers away, which the train covers in exactly 3 hours. Considering the condition of the rails, this is a very good speed, and in some sections the train accelerated to 40 and even 50 km/h. The occupancy of the car never exceeded a third, and only about 10 people traveled from end to end. The main flow was traffic between neighboring stations, and near major cities Even computers were discovered that were completely faithful to the usual form of transport.

In half an hour the train quickly reached the Golem station, which is in the area of ​​distant beaches. Remembering how difficult it is for vacationers to get there in the summer season - either by changing buses or having to wait in traffic jams by car - I dare to assume that the train in this regard is in no way inferior to its competitors for passengers. What is stopping you from launching a commuter train with hourly service according to the summer schedule?

Moreover, it is more convenient and faster to get to all other cities along the route of our train this way. For example, there is no direct bus between Durres and Elbasan, and making a transfer in Tirana is difficult - the bus arrives at one place and departs from a completely different one. So for the preservation of the railway. transport we have arguments.

Let's move on. Everywhere there is a single track, and trains can pass each other only at stations. An hour after departure, at the Kawai station we note the first oncoming train - the Elbasan one. It is no different from ours:

The conductor and barmaid have a dust-free job: the first one only checks tickets (passengers themselves open the doors at stops), and the second one delivers drinks once during the entire journey. The policeman goes more often, but only because he is a more sociable person - passengers on the train do not row in public.

In contrast to Durres, the train stations of the other stations look unsightly and dull, so I photographed them only for the sake of order:

Having traveled approximately halfway, we reach the junction station Rogozhino (Rrogozhinё). Here the second oncoming train is already waiting for us - the Vlora one, and some of its passengers make a sports transfer, literally jumping into our train within a minute of stopping. Vlorsky left the station so quickly that I didn’t even have time to photograph him:

I found only one working semaphore during the entire journey (at least the lights were on). And really, who needs them with such little traffic? Moreover, when passing settlements The locomotive hums continuously like an elephant. However, barriers at some crossings still work.

Same station on the way back. Here our train arrives a little earlier than Vlora, so that people have time to change trains:

Here we have already turned east and are moving up the valley of the Shkumbini River. The valley is wide, picturesque, intensively plowed:

But here's the river itself - it would be better if your eyes didn't see it: all the coastal bushes are so thickly covered with garbage that they resemble Christmas tree. But what does not settle on the branches floats to the sea.

The city of Rogozhin (emphasis on the last syllable) is famous for its many kilometers aqueduct(part of it can be seen in the background of the previous photo). Apparently, the ancient Albanians built it to water their gardens. For the sake of such a landmark, I had to contrive and remove it through the glass at full speed:

The next station - Pechin - pleased with its creative sign:

In this regional center nothing else remarkable was revealed from the window, except perhaps a high-security prison :)

Then the road went noticeably uphill, and even tunnels 100-300 meters long appeared. There were no major stations for almost an hour until Elbasan itself - the only city of Cerrik was located across the river. During the years of socialism, Tserrik was a major industrial center; there was even a small oil refinery operating here. A railway line leads to the former plant, marked on all maps as “operational, for freight traffic.” In fact, it’s problematic to drive along it, and there’s no reason to:

The “garbage banks” of Shkumbini are clearly visible here.

At the entrance to Elbasan, the train passes by (or rather, passes through) another giant of the socialist era - the metallurgical plant. The plant, no smaller than the city itself, looks abandoned, but life is still glimmering in some workshops. Unfortunately, I was not able to take a single angle.

Three hours later, we finally arrive in Elbasan. The station looks much more modest than the one in Durres, but it is still clear that the station is large:

There is even a dedicated first track, but drivers ignore it. But we are always ready to chat with friends:

Then the platform guard spotted me, and I had to take the last shot on the way back, and even then on the sly:

This is a view of the western neck of the station. Firstly, there is some kind of track development at the station. Secondly, freight cars were spotted for the first time (later, on the way back we came across a whole freight train). Thirdly, there is a spare pair of carriages on the siding. I don’t know for what reasons (maybe out of superstition), but at the final stations the locomotive leaves the delivered cars and picks up new ones. So, on the way back we were already traveling in different carriages, although with the same staff.

Probably, from below it looks much more impressive than from the window of a train going above, but it would still be interesting to take a ride. Well, we'll leave it for next time if the traffic isn't closed before I get around to doing it.

The dynamics of the Albanian railway industry can be described in one word: primitivization. This applies to the railway network, passenger and freight transportation, the state of track infrastructure, locomotive and carriage fleets. In particular, passenger traffic, which in the best years reached 4 million people. per year, since the beginning of the century it has begun to decline steadily and rapidly, and now barely exceeds the figure of 300 thousand (Wikipedia). The cancellations and reductions of trains were accompanied by the physical degradation of the road network. So, at the end of 2013, the railway left even the capital of the country: on the Vora-Tirana section, the rails were dismantled, and the station was completely destroyed.

From the once developed railway network, in fact, there are three sections left with passenger traffic: Durres-Vlora, Shkoder-Skozet and Rogozhino-Librazd. There are only two junction stations left: Shkozet and Rogozhino.

I deliberately left the Podgorica-Shkodra cross-border section on this diagram, in the vain hope of returning passenger traffic between Albania and Montenegro before the rails there were dismantled. In my estimation, such a train would be in incredible demand among tourists, since there is no alternative in the form of reliable bus service between countries.

It is unknown how long the railway will last, at least in its current state, so without waiting for its terrible end, I decided to devote the day of April 3 to this vanishing form of transport. There was nothing to choose from: even based in the main railway center of the country - Durres, you can create only one route for a day trip back and forth, namely Durres-Librazh. The schedule of all Albanian trains is placed on one A4 page:

So, in all of Albania there are 4 (four) pairs of trains left: two on the Durres-Elbasan route, and one each on Durres-Shkoder and Durres-Vlora. It is interesting that the turnover of these trains is arranged in such a way that they all “spend the night” at different terminal stations, as a result of which only one departs from Durres in the morning - to Librazh; they can return back on the same day. If this schedule applies to a developed railway. country, an attentive reader could assume that in addition to those mentioned, there is another VBS in Albania (Vlora-Librazd), and at the Elbasan station the uncoupling of excess cars is carried out. In reality, there is no exchange of carriages: passengers from Vlora simply jump onto the agreed train at the connecting station, and all the carriages that left Durres (and it doesn’t matter if they are empty) are brought to Librazhd.

The librazhd is so small that there is nothing to do in it even during the hour while the driver is having lunch. Therefore, it was decided not to travel the entire way, but only to Elbasan, using the three hours that the train turns around at the final station for a walk around the city (there will be a separate post). The only difficulty of this whole plan was getting up at 5 am, but we managed it, and half an hour before departure we arrived at the starting point - at the train station in Durres. The station building was designed with bustling life in mind, but today the form looks disproportionate to its content:

The only function of this two-story palace is to sell tickets. Tariffs in Albania are extremely low: a 100 km trip will cost you the price of a cappuccino - about $1. I paid only 230 lek for my round-trip ticket - the light bulb that burned out the day before was even more expensive :)

Having purchased tickets, we go out onto the platform. The station, although large, does not particularly stand out from the general background:

Pay attention to the covered viaduct on the left side of the frame - this is the transition to the seaport, and in comparison with the neighboring entrance to the railway. station, it is much busier in the morning - the first ferry from Italy has just arrived. But let's return to our platform. Absolutely nothing has changed here in the year since I visited here for the first time:

Even in the list of destinations they didn’t cross out the currently irrelevant cities of Tirana and Pogradec :)
And our train is already standing on the first (or second?) track, hospitably opening half of each door (the second, as it turned out later, no longer opens everywhere). The Albanian train consists of two rather long two-section carriages,

slaves shunting Czech-made diesel locomotive:

The entire locomotive fleet of the country consists of exactly the same diesel locomotives, of which 61 were imported in the 70-80s. Probably half of them remain: about a dozen are employed on the lines, the rest are laid up rusting at the Xkozet and Fier stations.

As for the carriages, it is not so easy to determine their origin: I searched for a long time, but never found a single plate from the manufacturer. However, from the inscriptions on various auxiliary equipment, we can conclude that the carriages began their life in one of the German-speaking countries. In general, the car is quite comfortable, although a little broken down:

Unlike the armchairs, there was not a single living space left on the windows. All the glass is cracked, and the windows (where they exist) are fixed in the last position before breaking: closed, half-open or completely open:

This circumstance made the blogger’s task extremely difficult: driving near an open window meant freezing in 5 minutes (not the month of May), and in other places it was impossible to photograph through the window - either there were cracks or a layer of dust. In general, the situation with glass turned out to be the same as a year ago on the cable car - Albanians are not friends with transparent windows on transport.

Despite the fact that all the carriage rooms were marked 2nd class, we were not allowed into the VIP section of the first carriage - officials were traveling there: a conductor, a barmaid and a policeman with a friend. Thus my last hope for taking pictures of the views from the window disappeared. As it turned out later, you can’t take much pictures at the stops either: the train stopped for more than one minute only when the VIPs wanted to drink a cup of coffee at some station - although the driver didn’t join them, he waited patiently for ten minutes.

Here, in fact, is our driver before the start of his working day:

Everything is simple and familiar: I came to work on a bike, in ordinary civilian clothes. Soon a partner of the same kind arrived and the loading of bicycles began - it’s much easier to do this together:

Of the entire staff, only one person is wearing a railway uniform - the platform controller:

By the way, anyone interested in the question of where Kolomoisky disappeared to - well, here he is, hiding in an inconspicuous Albanian train. But let's continue about the controller. He does not check tickets, but only keeps order in the territory entrusted to him - for example, he drives old women away from the edge of the platform in front of an arriving train. As you can see even from the photo, in Durress he was a good-natured guy, but in Elbasan I came across a very strict guy - he immediately forbade me to take photographs and escorted me until the exit, so that God forbid I disobeyed :)

However, it's time to go. Elbasan is 76 kilometers away, which the train covers in exactly 3 hours. Considering the condition of the rails, this is a very good speed, and in some sections the train accelerated to 40 and even 50 km/h. The occupancy of the carriage never exceeded a third, and at most 10 people traveled from end to end. The main flow was traffic between neighboring stations, and near large cities there were even computers that were completely faithful to the usual mode of transport.

In half an hour the train quickly reached the Golem station, which is in the area of ​​distant beaches. Remembering how difficult it is for vacationers to get there in the summer season - either by changing buses or having to wait in traffic jams by car - I dare to assume that the train in this regard is in no way inferior to its competitors for passengers. What is stopping you from launching a commuter train with hourly service according to the summer schedule?

Moreover, it is more convenient and faster to get to all other cities along the route of our train this way. For example, there is no direct bus between Durres and Elbasan, and making a transfer in Tirana is difficult - the bus arrives at one place and departs from a completely different one. So for the preservation of the railway. transport we have arguments.

Let's move on. Everywhere there is a single track, and trains can pass each other only at stations. An hour after departure, at the Kawai station we note the first oncoming train - the Elbasan one. It is no different from ours:

The conductor and barmaid have a dust-free job: the first one only checks tickets (passengers themselves open the doors at stops), and the second one delivers drinks once during the entire journey. The policeman goes more often, but only because he is a more sociable person - passengers on the train do not row in public.

In contrast to Durres, the train stations of the other stations look unsightly and dull, so I photographed them only for the sake of order:

Having traveled approximately halfway, we reach the junction station Rogozhino (Rrogozhinё). Here the second oncoming train is already waiting for us - the Vlora one, and some of its passengers make a sports transfer, literally jumping into our train within a minute of stopping. Vlorsky left the station so quickly that I didn’t even have time to photograph him:

I found only one working semaphore throughout the entire journey (at least the lights were on). And really, who needs them with such little traffic? Moreover, when passing through populated areas, the locomotive continuously hums like an elephant. However, barriers at some crossings still work.

Same station on the way back. Here our train arrives a little earlier than Vlora, so that people have time to change trains:

Here we have already turned east and are moving up the valley of the Shkumbini River. The valley is wide, picturesque, intensively plowed:

But the river itself - it would be better if your eyes didn’t see it: all the coastal bushes are so thickly covered with garbage that they resemble a New Year tree. But what does not settle on the branches floats to the sea.

The city of Rogozhin (emphasis on the last syllable) is famous for its many kilometers aqueduct(part of it can be seen in the background of the previous photo). Apparently, the ancient Albanians built it to water their gardens. For the sake of such a landmark, I had to contrive and remove it through the glass at full speed:

The next station - Pechin - pleased with its creative sign:

In this regional center nothing else remarkable was revealed from the window, except perhaps a high-security prison :)

Then the road went noticeably uphill, and even tunnels 100-300 meters long appeared. There were no major stations for almost an hour until Elbasan itself - the only city of Cerrik was located across the river. During the years of socialism, Tserrik was a major industrial center; there was even a small oil refinery operating here. A railway line leads to the former plant, marked on all maps as “operational, for freight traffic.” In fact, it’s problematic to drive along it, and there’s no reason to:

The “garbage banks” of Shkumbini are clearly visible here.

At the entrance to Elbasan, the train passes by (or rather, passes through) another giant of the socialist era - the metallurgical plant. The plant, no smaller than the city itself, looks abandoned, but life is still glimmering in some workshops. Unfortunately, I was not able to take a single angle.

Three hours later, we finally arrive in Elbasan. The station looks much more modest than the one in Durres, but it is still clear that the station is large:

There is even a dedicated first track, but drivers ignore it. But we are always ready to chat with friends:

Then the platform guard spotted me, and I had to take the last shot on the way back, and even then on the sly:

This is a view of the western neck of the station. Firstly, there is some kind of track development at the station. Secondly, freight cars were spotted for the first time (later, on the way back we came across a whole freight train). Thirdly, there is a spare pair of carriages on the siding. I don’t know for what reasons (maybe out of superstition), but at the final stations the locomotive leaves the delivered cars and picks up new ones. So, on the way back we were already traveling in different carriages, although with the same staff.

Probably, from below it looks much more impressive than from the window of a train going above, but it would still be interesting to take a ride. Well, we'll leave it for next time if the traffic isn't closed before I get around to doing it.

Do you know what bothered me most about planning a trip to Albania? Her public transport and terrible roads. The prospect of traveling around the country at an average speed of 30 km/h in crowded old buses without ventilation is a joy for everyone. Globally, I talked about the difficult everyday life of tourists in a short report “Albania: an instruction manual”, so here I will focus only on transport. I will have to repeat some things from the original text because they are relevant. Take it as an axiom that Albanian roads consume the lion's share of your time, and searching for non-existent bus stations consumes the lion's share of your nerves. And yet Albania is beautiful, this is an indisputable fact. Let's start with the Albanian railway, which is distinguished by its considerable flavor -

Friends, are you really scared by the photo above? Don't worry, this carriage is on sidings and hasn't seen passengers for a long time. In fact, you will travel in Albania in other carriages, somewhat better than this one. The fact is that several years ago Albania bought old (by Italian standards) carriages from Italy and now these old Italian carriages are running fast on Albanian rails. And don't be confused by the broken windows everywhere, the kids are having fun throwing stones at passing trains. However, according to locals, in last years hooligan practices have disappeared and driving has become absolutely safe -

The inside of the carriages looks quite civilized, at least better than some long distance, where there is truly hell and horror, as if they were transporting not people, but cattle. Albanians travel to substantially better conditions than the Russians -

But this is what Albanian trains have in common with Russian electric trains(in terms of distance, the Moscow-Petushki train corresponds to the longest journey in Albania from Shkoder to Vlora), there is a lack of toilets. More precisely, there are toilets, you understand that even 40 years ago in Italy people did not urinate in the passages between carriages. But for some reason the Albanians walled up the toilets, so the passengers found their own way to relieve themselves, something like this -

Albanian train stations are not distinguished by the elegance of their architecture; this is not Budapest or Moscow. Everything here is designed in the strict colors of socialist realism of the sixties, when Albania fell out with Khrushchev and adopted the fiery ideas of Maoism -

Travel on Albanian trains, you will meet beautiful girls -

And here are the schedules -

And prices (for convenience $1 = 100 Leke) -

Interior of the station -

Albanian trains are driven exclusively by old shunting diesel locomotives, now they will attach it to those cars and go passenger train from Durres to Tirana -

I respect railway transport and always prefer it to bus transport. But in the case of Albania, the reality is that the train only makes sense if you have an insane amount of free time. It's not even a matter of broken carriages or closed toilets. Not only is the railway transportation network very limited, in fact there are only two lines: Shkoder - Durres - Vlora, Durres - Tirana and Tirana - Pogradec. Almost all trains go through Durres, this is a junction station. There are very few trains, for example, on the Shkoder - Vlora line there are only 2 trains per day, on the Tirana - Pogradec line there is only one. There are about 5 trains a day on the Tirana-Durres line; they cover 35 km in just over an hour. It’s not difficult to calculate how long it will take you to travel, say, from Vlora to Shkodër, the distance there is about 200 km. And this is still provided that departure at 4.30 am is quite acceptable to you.

p.s. In development of the topic of the Albanian railway, I strongly recommend that you read my colleague’s report griphon , who spoke in great detail about his experience of traveling around Albania by train.

Buses

I have already talked about the features of traveling around Albania by bus, for those who have not read, I will repeat it very briefly. Traveling around Albania will be unreasonably long, painful and in poor conditions. Add to the lack of roads the difficult mountainous terrain, dead buses with non-functional ventilation, and you get the following figures: the average speed in the northern part of Albania will be about 40 km/h, in the southern, more mountainous part - 30 km/h. Don't be fooled by the small size of the country; you will spend more time in transport than visiting attractions. Frankly, I didn’t believe it, how can you drive so slowly? And the box opened very simply: Mountain road, covered in potholes, a truck the age of our parents crawls along, followed by a hundred cars and twenty buses. In the oncoming lane there is an identical picture. Then someone stalls and you are stuck in a traffic jam. So relax and proceed from the formula 30 and 40 given above. A relatively good road was built between Tirana and Durres, but even there you will not accelerate faster than 50 km/h, and if on some section your driver exceeded 100 km/h, then the correct sign - there is a traffic jam ahead and you will be stopped for an hour due to an accident, or the breakdown of another bus. They are still actively building a highway from Tirana to Shkodër, but it will take several more years before it starts working.

Now it’s very easy for you to calculate travel time. Are you going from Tirana to Gjirokastra? Great, worthy place. It’s 170 kilometers there, the road goes south. This means we divide 170 by 30 and we get about 6 hours of travel. Do you need to go to Rinas airport from the center of Tirana? Do you think that 25 km is not enough? Allow an hour for the journey - you won't go wrong.

So, Albania was one of the most closed countries in the world for half a century. It’s no wonder that it contains subtleties unknown to us. For example, when I was in Shkodra, I spent a long time racking my brain about how I could catch a taxi to the Rozafa fortress, which is 5 km from the center. Not a single taxi was seen on the street. According to Russian habit, I stretch out my hand - no one stops me, people look in bewilderment. Then I notice that not far from me, almost two dozen ordinary cars are lined up along the street, all with their doors open. It turned out that these were taxis, or more precisely, “bombs”. But they themselves may not approach you, although they clearly see that you are catching a car. The funny thing is that official taxi drivers pay taxes and issue receipts, but bombers are forced, at least formally, to hide. If you come up on your own, they will take you, they say, the man asked, he couldn’t refuse. But if they imposed themselves on you, this would already be a risk of running into an inspector for illegal business activities. Actually, one of the bombers told me all this.

Let's return again to Albania's communist past. Previously, people did not disperse across the country and abroad, but only moved from home to production. Those going to the pipe plant waited for a ride at the exit of the city next to the monument to the Albanian communist. Now the monuments have been demolished, but the system of waiting for buses and minibuses in strange places preserved. In the town of Fier, minibuses to Berat depart from a certain point between an abandoned boiler house and the city dump. It took a long time for a local English-speaking guy to explain this to me: “You go straight for a kilometer, then turn right for two hundred meters. There you will see a factory chimney, go to it. When you reach the pipe, look to the left, there will be a garbage heap, you reach it, and then go to the opposite side of the road - there will be a minibus.” In a crazy state, I walked the whole way, but didn’t find the minibus, but was barked at by a pack of stray dogs. In the end, it turned out that the minibus runs several times a day and today the last one has already left. I had to go back to the center, look for a minibus to some village (whose name I forgot) and from there transfer to Berat.

In large cities there are some semblances of bus stations, for example in Durres all the buses are clustered at one point, next to the railway station. You won't find any schedules, don't get your hopes up. Some local residents They will tell you that the bus to Tirana runs every hour. Next is a small collection of Albanian buses, in which you will spend a considerable part of your trip through this country -

Some buses are quite civilized, but this is rare. The bus you see below is a huge rarity, I would say the only one I have encountered. Even the air conditioning worked there, which is absolute nonsense -

In 9 out of 10 cases there will be other buses waiting for you -

The buses will always be crowded as drivers wait until the last seat is filled. And even when all the seats are occupied, the last ones will be given buckets and they will ride in the aisle on buckets. This is very convenient, apparently.

And I once had to ride in the trunk of a minibus, sitting on the spare wheel -

Transport prices

Trains cost $1 per 50 kilometers, buses $1 per 30 kilometers, minibuses (vans) $1 per 20 kilometers. Accordingly, travel by minibus from Saranda in the far south of Albania to Tirana 180 kilometers will cost $10-12, from Tirana to Durres only 35 kilometers - just over one and a half dollars.

Shot-ridden carriages, glass broken by stones, not just one or two, but ALL of them in ALL carriages in the ENTIRE train...
It’s better not to sit by the window on this train: after all, another stone thrown from an embankment by an amused boy could easily fly into the window...
In general, welcome to the AZD - Albanian Railways train.

There are no trains to Albania, and in the country itself there is only one line left, Shkodra-Durres-Vlora, crossing it from north to south. The rolling stock, which is still able to move, rather resembles pretty shabby “railway dinosaurs.” And this should be taken into account that until 1990, railway transport was the main one in Albania - in the best years, 4 million people a year used it. Although, according to the current state of this infrastructure, it is difficult to imagine such a thing ...

2. In general, until the 1940s, Albania was still at the level of the 19th century, but a number of narrow-gauge railways built during the First World War existed. The first railway line with a standard gauge (Durres - Pekini) was built in 1947 and was able to gradually establish communication with neighbors. In 1973, a mountain section of the Albanian railway was laid from Elbasan to Prenzhas.

3. The railways of Albania during the totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha, when the use of private transport was actually prohibited, were widely supported by the authorities. They became the main one transport system, giving the opportunity to move around the country.

4. After the fall of the communist regime and the transition to a market economy, people rushed to satisfy their automotive dreams, the number of cars and, accordingly, road transport grew rapidly. And then an expressway was built between Tirana and Durres - the railway network began to be used less and less, the budget for its development was reduced, stations were closed, tracks were dismantled... Albania gradually slipped into the 19th century.

5. At the end of 2013, the railway even left the capital of the country: on the Vora-Tirana section, the rails were dismantled and the station was demolished, it seems that they are going to build a park there. From the once developed network, three sections with passenger traffic remain: Durres-Vlora, Durres-Shkodër and Rogozhino-Librazhd.

6. Every year the track infrastructure, locomotive and carriage depots deteriorate. No one is updating them, but they can maintain them in working order and consider this sufficient.

7. Although it is completely unclear why the authorities don’t go to tidy up and develop the remaining branches - after all, the nature here is amazing, and trains could be used to attract tourists.

8. The same can be said about the cross-border section Podgorica-Shkodër, between Albania and Montenegro. Now only freight trains run along it, but if there were passenger trains there, they would probably be in demand, because... Bus service between countries leaves much to be desired.

9. Although, I’m not entirely right about the unrenewed train, Germany, Italy, France and some other European neighbors are happy to push decommissioned cars into Albania. On the last journey, or what?

10. But diesel locomotives are a relic of the totalitarian communist regime. In the 1970-80s, the country imported something like 60 pieces (figures vary in different sources), of which only half survived to this day: about ten are still running, the rest are rusting, laid up.

11. By the way, travel on Albanian trains is the cheapest in Europe. The longest journey from Shkoder to Vlora will cost approximately 2.5 euros (335 levs)

12. By the way, it is better to visit the toilet before the trip, since in almost all local trains they are either broken, or closed, or are in a very unsightly condition.

13. Yes, and you should not expect a fast trip either - the average speed of the train is about 40 km / h, although it can accelerate up to 50 km / h. But the breeze from the broken windows is guaranteed for you...

14. The track in Albania is single-track, which means that trains can only pass at stations. Therefore, the schedule in Albanian is a very vague concept, you have to wait until the oncoming one comes in order to continue on your way.

15. This is how the Albania train moves towards its future without railways...