Today was going to be another long day on the road, 7+ hours on the road and we were going to cross Montenegro and Albania. From Cavtat we were going to drive into Dubrovnik, check out the famous fortress and then carry on towards Lake Ohrid, Macedonia.

We were kind of confused if we should break our journey in Albania or carry on till Lake Ohrid, Macedonia! Reading about Albania made us kill the idea of stopping over, online reviews were as vibrant as one would find about certain cities of India ;-) Drive towards Dubrovnik was very beautiful, all the houses in Dubrovnik had white walls and red tops which gave this town an amazingly beautiful and distinctive looks. Initially we had planned to stop here for a while and check out the fortress but the rate at which the traffic was moving, and since we could almost circle the fortress wall in the car itself, we decided to keep on moving.

Once out of Dubrovnik, we were in Montenegro in no time. Since we had selected the coastal route, the views throughout were breathtaking and we had to literally strangle our urge of stopping every now and then.

By the time we entered Albania it had already started to get dark, and the look and feel of Albanian towns was justifying all the reviews we had read online. We were done with the Albanian Riviera and had started ascending uphill. Soon it was pitch dark and the road was getting narrower and narrower, soon it was wide enough to accommodate one big vehicle. The tarmac was good and smooth which kind of was instigating the racer in me but my dear Aarti, who is scared of winding roads that too downhill made sure that racer in me never woke up. This downhill road had endless twists and turns and Aarti also mentioned that it was termed quite a dangerous road! We finally made the decent and were happily cruising towards the Albania-Macedonia border, when it started raining quite heavily. Narrow roads, twists & turns, heavy rains, all these factors had collectively effected our cruising speed and by the time we made it to the border, it was already close to 10 PM. We were happy that we were almost an hour away from our hotel, however we forgot that we would need car insurance to enter Macedonia and it was already 10 PM and the lady who issued insurance at the border had already left for her house! Thanks to the nice border officials, they called the insurance lady and she agreed to come back to her border office, provided we paid additional money towards her taxi charges! Off course we had no plans of spending the night at the border, so we instantaneously agreed and in another hour or so we were on our way towards the Hotel. Now the GPS decided not to point us towards the exact Hotel location, so after trying some guess work and trying to figure out the instructions we had for the Hotel, we decided to hire a taxi to guide us to this address. We followed this taxi guy towards the Hotel which was right in front of Lake Ohrid, paid him and checked in. We both were feeling exhausted with the twists and turns Albania had in store for us, so we gave in to the urge and called it a day. The hotel we stayed in Macedonia was: Hotel Villa Dislievski – Read Review Kej Marshal Tito br.68a, Ohrid 6000, MK

#Dubrovnik Fortess

Day 17: Dubrovnik to Macedonia via Montenegro and Albania