In the last 3 days I have been to three different cities in central Albania. All of them quite different and unique, and all of them magnificent in their own way. I’ll have a longer post with more details later, but here’s a short overview.

> Pogradec: a nice city on the South shore of Lake Ohrid. It seemed very quiet during the day, but as soon as the sun went down the town came to life, which is fairly typical. I enjoyed their signature lake trout called Koran, and it was delicious! This was the first lake resort town I have visited in a long time.

> Korce was noticeably larger, higher in elevation, and both of these cities were significantly cooler than Tirana, our home base for the summer. It was much more crowded, and felt like a bigger city, but it still retained quite a bit of intimacy. I took a ride to the tallest peak surrounding the town, and what a view!

> Permet: this is the smallest of the three, and again, all are amazing in their own special way. But it was the ride here on the motorcycle that truly put a grin on my face for a 2.5 hours. I didn’t cover a lot of distance, but it was one of the most challenging and exhilarating motorcycle rides in all my years. Here’s what it looked like: https://www.relive.com/view/vevW5Lp7ny6.

The town itself is along the Vjosa River, and if you’ve never seen the aqua blue-green natural waters in Albania, check out that water color! This town is known for white water rafting and hot springs, so definitely on my list of places to return to.

Tomorrow is Vlore, the last of the four stops heading south. In a few weeks I’ll check out some towns to the north. The plan was to see if there were other smaller towns worth visiting for shorter periods of time. I think I know the answer to that question