Balkan Road Trip: Days 4 and 5

We were up bright and early and on the road by 7:15. We made great time since we didn't have all of our stuff and a tent to pack up. We stopped on the way out of Tetovo to get some groceries and then around 8:15 we took a break at a rest stop to eat our breakfast.

Breakfast on the road. Yogurt, bread, cheese and olives.

Sleepy kids! I was surprised how great all the kids did in the van. Sure, there were moments when they wouldn't stop arguing and I wanted to pull my hair out, but overall they did great. It helped that we let Brooks have his nuk whenever he wanted.

We crossed into Albania shortly after 11 and were greeted by these guys!

Pretty much the rest of our day was spent driving. The roads were SUPER windy and we drove through many mountains. Vienna didn't feel so good at one point. We were thankful to hit some straight roads shortly before the capital, Tirana. We drove about 8 hours this day. We weren't expecting it to take that long, but the windy, mountain roads on the first part of our trip really slowed us down. The trip also took longer because we decided to avoid Kosovo altogether (which would have been a faster way to get to Albania). Since we were traveling through Serbia on our way home and Serbia doesn't recognize Kosovo as independent, we just wanted to be safe and not go through Kosovo at all. We had read that "it’s possible to travel from Serbia into Kosovo, and back again, but that you’ll probably encounter problems entering Serbia from Kosovo if your passport shows you entered Kosovo directly from anywhere else other than Serbia." I think it would have been fine, because on the way home we would be entering Serbia from Hungary, but better safe than sorry and not even have a Kosovo stamp in our passports.

We finally arrived at our campsite by Lake Shkoder, in northern Albania around 3. We got our tent set up quickly and went swimming in the lake.

The water was the perfect temperature and our kids had a blast jumping off the dock!

The campsite had a restaurant that was cheap and delicious.

Since we had such a long day of driving, we decided to stay for another day in Albania. The kids loved swimming in the lake and the campsite was so nice.

The next morning Joel made pancakes for breakfast. It was nice to have a relaxing morning instead of packing everything up and getting on the road.

The kids spent most of the day reading and swimming.

A beautiful sunset on the lake!