Mat & Kat's big bike trip
Day 64 Shkodër
There was a massive electrical storm overnight, we had the balcony door open to experience it and the cooling rain.
On the way to Bar this morning we saw a wedding convoy of five black, decorated sports cars and one white one in the middle containing the bride.
In Bar there was a huge orthodox church with domes covered in gold. From there it was a long, slow climb up a hill, 10km of roadworks along the plateau at the top, and then a beautiful 5km downhill on newly-surfaced roads. We passed several mosques and a few Muslim cemeteries.
Another 10km took us to the border, a bright purple building covered in flowers, where we had our first interaction with an Albanian person. We were in line with all the cars, and the guy in front of us called me over and told us to just walk our bikes to the front of the queue. We did that and saved ourselves at least half an hour of hot sunny waiting. Thanks Mr dude!
At the border they were super nice too, waving us straight through. We stopped on the other side and had a sandwich, eager to see what Albania is like. So far it's similar to Montenegro lol, but with a lot more mosques. As we were eating we could hear the call to prayer from multiple directions all at once.
Albania has been looming in the background of the whole trip, the big unknown. We didn't know if we wanted to cycle across it, how we could if we wanted to, the language is completely unknown to us, and with quite different culture. For example, people nod their heads no and shake their heads yes. But we made it across the border and now the real adventure starts!
Love, Kat & Mat x
On the day
👀 3 yellow cars
💧 3L water
💧 1 cup of tea
🍕 1 banana
👀 1 wedding convoy
👀 5 mosques
👀 1 gold megachurch
All reports
April 2026
May 2026
June 2026