Friday, 2013/09/06

This day is a beach day. After having covered so many kilometers in such a short time, we really deserve a rest day.

We have breakfast from Meg (aka Penelope Cruz) and the padrone at our place. The two run the place quite well. The communication during breakfast is very funny, because there's also a German couple in one of the apartments. The woman, who has studied Greek, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish, is fluent in some languages and can speak with the padrone in Greek, as he is a member of the Greek minority in Albania. So we can communicate in a big round in Italian, German, Greek somehow together. That's pretty entertaining and funny.

We decide to ride with the bikes down to the beach and look for a nice spot. First of all we have to get some cash from an atm. We also get some provisions for our beach day. Equipped this way we can spend the whole day on the beach. Opposite to the shop is an ugly ruined building. The beautiful and the ugly are often close to each other here.

We ride to the very end of the beach and walk even a little further. It is quite lonely there, but we wear swim suits, because nakedness at the beach does not seem to be common here.

We enjoy the day on the beach, of course, with swimming in the absolutely clean water a few times.  The Adriatic sea is wonderfully warm. We're reading books or listening to an audiobook, write diary and also enjoy an unusual sporting activity: throwing pebbles into the bunkers on the beach.

We stay on the beach until dusk. A day without riding windy roads is sometimes relaxing too.

Zum Abendessen beschliessen wir auch zu unserem Padrone zu gehen. Wir haben Fisch bei ihm geordert. Er hat zwar eine Gruppe Einheimischer am Abend zu Gast, da das WM-Qualifikationsspiel im Fußball zwischen Albanien und Slowenien übertragen wird (Ergebnis 1:0 für Slowenien), aber wir bekommen dennoch ein leckeres Essen direkt vom Grill. So schließen wir einen gemütlichen Erholungstag ab und entscheiden nur noch, am nächsten Tag weiter ins albanische Inland zu fahren.