Week 39: Albania with Nana & Pops (posted by Wade)

We had a fun week driving around Albania with Nana & Pops. The main themes for these past few days have been medieval castles, delicious food, and learning about Albania's totalitarian past.

After picking Nana & Pops up from the airport in Tirana, we familiarized ourselves with Albanian history by visiting the Bunk'art Museum. It is located in a 1980s downtown bunker and it tells the story of how Enver Hoxha's communist regime kept control over Albania for forty years. Later in the evening, we tried to dodge some Tirana rain showers with varying degrees of success.

Our next stop was Berat, which is a few hours south of Tirana. It's a lovely town with an obligatory hilltop castle. Pops made a friend at a local seafood restaurant. The new friend shared with Pops raki and stories about the collapse of communism. While in Berat, we continued our weeks-long admiration of Orthodox iconography at the icon museum, and we stumbled upon some modern iconography in the form of murals commemorating the war in Kosovo.

From Berat, we continued our journey south to Gjirokaster. Again, a lovely town with cobblestone streets, steep slopes, and a hilltop castle. This time, Pops and I made friends with the proprietor of a restaurant who insisted on teaching us some traditional Albanian folk dances.

This has been a classic Kota-family trip so far: lots of good walks, delicious food, and plenty of history.

Week 38: Ohrid, North Macedonia (posted by Eliza)

We arrived in Ohrid on Friday, March 20 from Bitola. It was less than a two hour drive. The first thing that struck me about Ohrid is that it is gloomy but beautiful. I mean it was very cloudy and cold on the day that we arrived, although it has a giant lake with snow-capped mountains in the distance.

We went on a long walks through the town and along the lake and saw some rocky beaches. We also spent the week thinking our brains out for our research projects. So there was lots of walking around and lots of studying. I did my presentation on basketball in the Balkans and Annie did her presentation on Balkans food.

Mom and Dad found a basketball court while they were exploring on top of the old fortress hill. It looks out over Lake Ohrid and it is very scenic. Later, Jane and I went with Dad and had a lot of fun playing basketball. Annie cooked yummy stuff for our dinner, specifically mushroom soup, stuffed zucchinis, and stewed apples. Mom helped a lot.

Some other highlights included exploring the medieval fortress and visiting Orthodox churches that are over 1,000 years old. The churches had very interesting frescos that told the story of Jesus. Some of the faces were rubbed out during the Ottoman era because in Islam you cannot worship false idols.

Overall, this week was pretty chill, but still very fun. I would recommend Ohrid because of the stunning views and the rich culture -- which is kind of what we say about every place.

Week 37: Bitola, North Macedonia (posted by Annie)

 

We had a seven hour drive from Montenegro to Macedonia, ending up in Bitola. Bitola is an authentic, lived-in town, with a fantastic pedestrian old town, and lots of shops. We ate at an amazing pizza place next to the town's old clock tower.

The next day we visited the town's history museum. It used to be an Ottoman military school, Ataturk went there himself, so there is an exhibition to him, funded by the Turkish government.

The following day was uneventful, up until night came, and dad found out about a basketball game being played. On Bitola's team, there were three American players, and Eliza even got a selfie with one one of them. She also made a friend, who was seven years old and taught us some Macedonian.

The day after, we decided it would be good weather to see the ancient Greek town called Heracles, in the suburbs of Bitola.

To the daughters' dismay, our dad made us bush-wack to the top of a hill with good views. It may or may not have ended in tears, and yet dad and Jane still wanted to go to the gym later.

The next day was uneventful, so Eliza and I decided to play some basketball.

The day after we visited an Orthodox church, with breathtaking icons.

We also stumbled on old Roman carvings. We joked that the heads on a stone were ancestors of Voldemort because they did not have any noses.