hello and welcome to the Edges of Earth, my name is Brock. i spent a lot of time in Albania. and in today's video, i want to give you the condensed version of my journey.
i arrived in Tirana and within a couple of days, i took a bus to hang out in Korçë for a while.
before i started exploring with my camera, i decided to fly the drone and capture a little bit of footage. while transferring the data from the drone to my laptop, a couple of kids seen me and came up to me and started a conversation.
they wanted to see me fly, so i decided to invite them to come with me on a future hike in just a couple of days.
it was a fun little mini adventure. we climbed a small hill and watched the sunset over their extremely beautiful town.
on another day i took a walk from the city all the way to the top of the nearby mountain, which had a giant cross and an old church on the top.
when i took out my drone to fly i realized i forgot the cable. so that was fun. i walked down the hill a little bit to a nice nearby restaurant to quench my thirst.
after that my waiter showed me a shortcut through the forest back down to the city. and so i took that, and the walk was particularly beautiful.
on another day i went for an adventure on another nearby mountain. this time i did not forget my drone. from google maps, it looked like there was some type of ancient civilization on the top. i wasn't sure.
as it turns out, it was just construction left over from war preparation not too many years ago. basically, i just met some horses and got stung by a ton of bees while walking up there through all the flowers.
but it was totally worth it. the views were unbelievably amazing! while in Korçë a YouTuber that goes by the name of FoodXBert reached out to me.
we decided to grab a little dinner and have a couple drinks. this is the second time we met. the first time was actually in china.
and then two separate subscribers of my channel reached out to me. one of them was from the united states. we hung out for the evening and grabbed a few drinks.
and the other one came all the way from Germany. we walked around town for a bit. he showed me his absolutely amazing Rubik's cube skills.
and then we walked around the town for an afternoon flying the drone. i took a trip over to a place called Vlorë. i decided to rent a room there for a few months.
and one day, i decided to walk along the coastline to see how far i could go. the major highlight was when i met an old man.
he came up to me and he tried to have a conversation with me. he just started speaking Albanian. obviously he realized really quick that i don't speak Albanian.
so i got out my phone we had a small little conversation through google translate. he was very curious about my camera and what i was doing here.
i told him that i was just filming for youtube. and i was quite surprised…he actually knew what that was. i kept walking and eventually i stopped to have a drink right on the coastline… and the view was just unbelievable!
i walked until the buildings, kind of, disappeared. i don't know how many kilometers i walked, but basically the next day, my body was super sore.
on another morning i got up early and wanted to go to the nearby castle. i walked in the direction of the bus stop and stopped at a nearby coffee shop.
while sitting and having an espresso, there was a small group of older men who were drinking shots for breakfast. it was like 8:30 or 9 o'clock in the morning.
i asked the owner if he could help me find where the actual bus stop was. he was kind enough to actually walk me out to his car and drive me about a minute down the street and drop me off.
he even got out and talked to the driver and translated everything for me. what's even more interesting is that the coffee shop owner could barely speak english whatsoever.
we communicated through google translate earlier. but he still went way out of his way to help me. so i got in the van and i was brought all the way to the top of the mountain.
and then i had to walk for maybe another 5 minutes, and then i was at the entrance of the castle. i immediately started walking around and just checking out the amazing views in every direction.
it was actually pretty high. i think i spent the majority of my time walking around and simply looking at the architecture. i guess i'm a bit of a nerd and i find ancient architecture to be a bit fascinating.
after about an hour and a half of walking around, i left… but nobody was there to collect money. so i just put some money on the counter. hopefully by now someone found it.
everyone in Vlorë told me that i needed to go to a nearby restaurant, which was overlooking the city. so that's what i did. i went on a very long walk and made it all the way there.
i sat down and had a bit of late breakfast while overlooking the amazing landscape. it's positioned on the side of the mountain overlooking the coastline.
and you can even see part of the city down below. so if you visit this city i definitely recommend that you go for breakfast, lunch, or dinner at this restaurant. it was a pretty cool place.
sometime in the early afternoon is when i started to head down the mountain. apparently all the buses are finished, and so i had to literally walk down the mountain.
unfortunately, after i was about halfway down the mountain, there was one extremely aggressive dog that ran up to me and started growling and barking. and he wouldn't let me pass.
so as i started walking backwards in the other direction, a second dog from the opposite direction came at me… and i was, like, pinned against a fence, in a corner.
it was really terrible. luckily there was a car passing, and i kind of held up my thumb and he stopped. and he let me in, and brought me all the way down the mountain. so that was good. luckily i was not devoured that day.
on another day, i walked through a local market in Vlorë. i've been to a lot of different markets around the world, and this one was unique in its own way.
many different items from gardening tools, to construction tools, to bicycles, vegetables, fruit, clothing for everyone in the family, paint, meat, and literally the list goes on and on. i couldn't even tell you how many things were there.
an older gentleman came up to me and tried his best to communicate with body, language because we couldn't understand each other. i tried to film our interaction but it just wasn't possible because i was holding a big camera… and usually that takes two hands.
and i couldn't take out my phone to translate and understand everything that he was saying. but he had a sense of humor. he appeared to be the jokester in the area. he had nothing but smiles and a pretty good sense of humor.
on another afternoon i walked through old Vlorë. to be honest i didn't see much that day. i think it was this day where i started to realize that, kind of in Albanian culture, people stay inside during the middle of the day.
many people are out in the morning or in the evenings. but kind of in the middle of the day, not too many people were around. but it was kind of fun just to walk through there and see what the buildings were like.
on another day i took a local bus to a nearby village that goes by the name of Orikum. i had no plans whatsoever. i just simply walked around and explored anything that looked interesting to me.
when i arrived i immediately walked all the way to the beach, got out my drone, and checked out the coast. it was just as amazing as i had hoped.
it was pretty cold that day, so after that, i packed up my gear and went into a nearby coffee shop and sat in there for a while to warm up. and then i walked back into the town.
and i basically kept walking until the town ended…and then turned around. i walked back into the town and heard a lot of people screaming in a stadium. so i decided to walk inside and see what i was missing.
it was a group of kids playing soccer. everybody was yelling, and screaming, and shouting, and jumping on their chair. It was an interesting sight. everybody is very excited about soccer in Albania.
after about 30 minutes of that, i took a bus back to my apartment, which was in Vlorë. the problem was i was the last person on the minibus and so i didn't have a seat.
i had to stand in the back with my legs on either side of a goat carcass. i had to be there for about 20 minutes or so. the man was worried about the smell. i was more worried about my comfort.
and sure enough, the next day when i woke up…one of my vertebrae was out of place.. and i literally could barely get out of bed for about 5 days.
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on another day i traveled further south until i went to a small town called Himarë. to be honest, it wasn't much fun. the weather was very cold and rainy for like 3 days. i stayed inside my room for about 95% of the time.
and on the 3rd evening, the sun finally came out… and i got to see the beauty of the village. it was amazing. i went out and flew the drone. and basically this is the only video that i made while there for 3 days.
next stop: Sarandë. i walked around this town basically for the majority of the day. i started off by grabbing a quick breakfast at a local restaurant. then i started walking along the coastline just to see everything.
there were basically restaurants on every corner of every street. i couldn't hardly take my eyes off the water just because it was so stunning. it was so blue. so clear.
the only thing that stopped me from going swimming was the particularly cold temperature.
it was still in the early part of the year, so since i couldn't swim, i stopped and had a bit of coffee…and checked out some of the birds and boats that were nearby.
after coffee, i walked to a little pier and went out to fly again… just to see what it looks like when the sun was higher. i must say, this town is just amazing.
i started walking along the coastline again and it wasn't very long before all of the new construction buildings turned into empty fields. there was nothing left.
i kind of reached the edge of the city, which was next to a military base. i decided to go up the hill until i met a crazy dog. so then i turned around and started walking back down the hill.
i seen a coffee shop, so i decided to go in and grab a drink. i finished the evening by walking along the coastline again, and simply watching the sunset.
the sunset in Sarandë is just amazing! you definitely have to visit this place. a couple of YouTubers reached out to me and wanted to hang out for the day. so we decided that we would meet up and go walk around a place called Ksamil.
we took a local bus to the small town. we immediately stopped to have a little bit of breakfast at a local coffee shop. right after that, we walked to the beach where we were able to see an unbelievably beautiful beach.
we flew a little bit. got some cool photos. then we got on a bus again and went further south to a place called Butrint. basically, this place is a large peninsula that contains a lot of remnants from ancient civilization.
some of them were more than 2,000 years old! after a couple hours of walking around there, we went across the river with a pulley boat, which is a first for me. and went inside an old venetian castle.
this place was particularly cool because everything was almost still perfectly intact. we were a little bit nervous when we went inside...because there was a room at the top with a wooden floor.
and we weren't sure if it would support our weight or not. but everything worked out. we captured a little bit of footage from that area as well. definitely a cool day.
next up, i visited a small city named Gjirokaster. it's also known as the stone city. this is probably one of my favorite places in Albania. almost all of the houses are completely made out of stone.
the walls, the floor, and even the roof. on the first day, i explored the castle. at the entrance, they had many different forms of artillery, giant guns, and even a tank that you could check out.
i walked downstairs and visited an ancient bakery. and i went down another flight of stairs to see an old prison, which didn't have any light bulbs in it. it was kind of creepy. water was dripping from the ceiling.
so i had to use my phone as a flashlight. and as i walked outside, i got an epic view of the city. it was just amazing!
as i walked around, i learned about a story of a woman who jumped off a castle to her death while holding her baby, a few hundred years ago… just to avoid being captured by the enemy who was overtaking the castle.
unfortunately about 40% of the castle was closed due to construction.. i mean every corner that i went around.. it was construction after construction.
so there was a lot more that i wish i could have seen, however, the other 60% was pretty cool. while in that city i also toured a place called the Zekate house.
and this place was basically built in the early 1800’s. i got a taste of what life was like so many years ago in this city. again, this house was completely made out of stone.
i visited when it was rather cold outside, and if you come in the spring or beyond, this place is actually a cafe. you can come and hang out and have some coffee or a beer and just chill out in any room that you want. so, that's pretty cool.
close by was another house that was built in the late 1700’s. it was called the Skenduli house. there was a woman who gave me a private tour and walked around and explained everything to me.
many things i would have never known about had she not told me. very similar to the previous house, but this was a little cooler because i learned a lot more information.
walking around gave me a taste of life in the mountains a couple hundred years ago. while in Gjirokaster i also visited a secret doomsday bunker, which was pretty cool.
this was only made public, i believe, in 2014. the dictator of Albania back in, i believe the 70’s or so, thought that world war 3 was coming. and so they carved a hole deep into the side of the mountain, underneath the castle.
and made a fallout shelter that would protect up to 200 leaders of their country in case of nuclear attacks. it was very interesting to walk around this place.
i definitely recommend visiting if you come but if you're claustrophobic, i definitely wouldn't recommend it.
after Gjirokaster, i took a bus and went to a small village named Tepelenë. i walked around all day just to soak up the amazing views. to kick off the day, i walked through the remnants of the castle.
there was houses in the middle of this castle that people still lived in. so i walked through there. as i walked through there, a couple teenagers tried to communicate to me, so we used google translate and had an interesting conversation.
after that, i walked down the hill into, kind of, a village area of the town. and i hung out and watched some kids play soccer from a distance in a field.
after that, i walked back up to the town on the hill. and basically, there was nobody outside. so then i walked down the mountain and found this old bridge. and i walked across it and got a pretty cool drone shot.
after the bridge, i walked along the river and found a man fishing so i walked up to him and used google translate to communicate with him. I asked him a little bit about the fish that he was catching…and what the biggest fish was that he ever caught.
by this time i was getting pretty cold, and the sun was just starting to go down for the evening behind some of the mountains. and so i walked back up to the town where i started to take one last video of the mountains.
and a couple kids ran up to me and started to talk to me and i was quite impressed with their english ability. we had quite a conversation for about 30 minutes. and then i told them i had to go because by this time i was so cold… i couldn't hardly feel my body.
after Tepelenë i took a trip to a place called Berat for a few nights. unfortunately, it was cold and rainy the majority of the time. i spent a lot of my time sitting in my hotel room and just editing previous videos.
on my final day, i took a walk to the top of the mountain where there was remains of an old castle. there's a small community at the top. there's a few people who still live there.
while exploring a couple kids came up to me and invited me to play soccer. so i said “yeah, why not?!” we played for maybe 10 minutes or so. and i was quite surprised, the older boy spoke amazing english!
we had quite a long conversation, and they wanted to show me around their area. and he told me that they were only two of four children that live on the top of that mountain.
after about 2 hours of walking and showing me around, we said our goodbyes… and i walked back down to my hotel.
after visiting Berat, i took a bus all the way to the north. and i stopped in a town called Shkodër. i didn't have any luck with the weather here, either. basically it rained for many days.
i stayed there for about 5 nights, i believe. while i was there, i met a couple foreigners who invited me on a bicycle trip with them. we biked along the coast of a nearby lake and seen some breathtaking views along the way.
eventually we arrived in the final village next to the border of Montenegro. we stopped and had some seafood for lunch, and we had beautiful views right on the lake.
the lunch was totally worth the 2 hour bike ride. later that evening, we rode the bikes to the top of the castle and explored for a few hours.
by this time, it was really cold and windy. but i must say, the views of this place was really something. i've been to a lot of castles in this country, and i must say, this was my favorite castle to visit.
in all four directions, there was a different landscape. and it was so beautiful in every single direction. it was an amazing place! we said our goodbyes, and then i took a road trip all the way to the south of the country to a place called Ksamil.
this is the same place that i was just a few weeks ago with the other YouTubers. but this time, i didn't film. i just went there to relax for a couple weeks and spend the majority of my time editing the videos.
it was just a little bit too cold to go swimming or really sit on the beach and soak up some sun. so i just used the time to edit. there were only a couple days when i got out and explored a little bit.
basically i just flew the drone and recorded a couple videos from the sky. this again is one of the most beautiful places in the entire country, in my opinion.
despite being so cold, every once in a while, i seen some people jump into the water… but it was always short-lived. they did not swim for very long, that's for sure!
i would love to come back to this little town and go swimming during the summer with some goggles and some flippers. it would be an awesome experience. the water is just so, so, clear!
that pretty much sums up my journey in Albania. Albania is a wonderful country, full of wonderful people, and amazing landscapes.
and just like every other country, i wish i would have stayed longer and visited more places. anyway that's it. stay tuned because i'm going to make another video about traveling in Albania. and a few tips i want to give to some future travelers.
thank you all for watching. remember, your time is running out… start living! take care.