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Tirana’s (Albania) new market area

take a walk around the non-tourist areas in the city to find some interesting places to eat and just stroll in the afternoon.

Barbecued meat and Greek salad tend to be pretty popular
Grilled pork and a Greek salad. Very delicious
Three street musicians playing traditional music
A group of friends entertaining for a little cash
Entrance to the old castle, now a market with mostly cafés and restaurants
Entrance to the Newmarket which is on the old castle grounds
Strolling in the market area
A place to commune, eat and drink and look for some little things to buy
Patriotic souvenirs
Some patriotic Albanian souvenir
St. Paul's Cathedral
Saint Paul’s Cathedral
Outside the Opera House
A lot of activities outside the Opera House
A book convention
This was a convention of booksellers
Founder of the modern Albanian state
The father of The Albanian state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Qemali

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Exploring Glasgow: A 5-Hour Itinerary

I didn’t spend much time in the city, just about five hours in the shopping area by the station so I don’t really know the more interesting places to go so I would recommend doing a little study of the city before entering to find what you might enjoy.

Industrialized fajitas
I doubt that anyone from Southern California would be interested in trying this. But you can always be adventurous.
Robert Peel statue
as I remember he was a Prime Minister during the turmoil with the American colonies? Actually, no. He was born in 1788
This is just one of the heroes in the main square by the station
The Duke stout just came out the month I was there as a brand new product. It was pretty nice. In the past I had tried various Scottish beers, ales and stouts in different countries but none of them were very good. But what I had this time in Scotland was nothing but great beers and stouts.
The iron Duke, Duke Stout
This is where I had the Duke stout
James Watt statue
The unit of power, watts, was named after him
Glasgow town center
Liam Payne tribute
Liam Payne died just a week before this
Birds on the head
is there a better use of a head? I’m surprised it’s not completely white
Tribute to the war dead
A tribute to the war dead
this is a famous prank against the Duke of Wellington statue outside the art museum. Someone comes to take the Cohn down and then kids come and put one back up again. It seems to be a continuing activity
Duke of Wellington Statue of Liberty

https://gandysinternational.com/blogs/atlas/how-to-have-the-perfect-weekend-in-glasgow?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAACuGsN45w_UjVPk1a2zYFYuYnK9Ms&gclid=CjwKCAiA6t-6BhA3EiwAltRFGL0T29AiRXtuwainEWmz1v5Mofsv-IyqDbs5Ijht1tIDH8OP-RFSlhoCAGYQAvD_BwE

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North Albania, up towards the beautiful mountain sides

Lezhe is a cute small city but the only real attraction there is the castle on the hill.

further north you come to the city of Shkoder which is fairly large for Albania.

going up to Koplick, the entrance to Theth, the famous mountains area of north Albania.

Theth is the mountain area everyone visiting Albania wants to see. It’s probably best to go on a excursion with a group so you know where to go hiking and what other things to see in the area. The valley itself has some places to stay but they really don’t provide many activities right in that area.

The road up to this area from Koplick it’s about 1/3 180° her pin turns, 1/3 90° turns and 1/3 45° turns. It’s quite a trip and it’s done very slowly by almost all the cars and they’re very careful drivers on this road. It’s a very beautiful drive but it is quite long.
Beautiful pie or fur trees along the way.
There are some walking areas once you get to the main valley but if you’re hiking you want to do it during the dry season because once it gets wet it’s very difficult walking around this area.
Once you get to the main valley they have a coffee shop restaurant with a fish pond.
I took the drive during the off-season and that may be one reason why they weren’t cleaning the roads of the fallen rocks. There were worse places than this.
This main river in the valley had a very beautiful green color to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theth

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Aberdeen, Scotland and surrounding area

Aberdeen I think can be an interesting town if you decide to stay there a couple days and pick out the certain places you want to visit. I was not so much interested in touring inside the city as I was going there to catch a ferry to the Shetland Islands. I find the countryside around there to be very interesting and much more stimulating than a city.

The much revered EdwardVII, son of Queen Victoria
This local church is obviously active so that it has sufficient funds to be repaired and maintained.
And this is what the church is promoting. This is Scotland!
Of course you can find Thai restaurants in most every city in Scotland. I suspect this one is run by type people but I was not able to check since it was not open when I was there.
Now you know the rest of the story
This was a tourist oriented organic farm where people can buy ice cream and other products.
The ice cream was delicious. You will see the bubble sitting areas in the background. It was pretty cold. A bubble is good protection.
A lot of thought went into these flavors
They have different bins at this tourist farm for recycling and this shows you how to recycle the pizza box. Yes, they do serve pizza here.
This was a good Chinese break from Scotland food though the flavors should’ve been much better.
This is a Palestinian demonstration pushing Barclays bank to divest from Israel.
Do you know a better use of a coffin? I hope this doesn’t signify what happens if you drink there.
These of course are tourist related trinkets possibly for the visitors south of the Scottish border.
He is very revered in Scotland.
Here he is behind a young girl who was a very good Piper
You can guess what they serve here
It looks as though everyone has had their say
This was kind of a nice pub just outside of Aberdeen across the street from my hotel
Beautiful countryside
Across the street from where I was dog sitting
I tried a new site called TrustedHousesitters and this was my first six day stay taking care of Trixie. She was a very easy dog to take care of and it was a beautiful area in the countryside. The arrangement with the website is you stay in someone’s house at no charge to you and they don’t pay you but it’s good for people who are traveling and need a break from the very expensive Scotland hotels and want to just relax in nice places and have some animals to take care of temporarily
The seals come here to hang out and watch the tourists. You have to pay for the parking space but it’s a nice area to take a walk and possibly go for a swim in the summertime. I can’t remember if swimming here is permitted. They definitely don’t want you going close to the seals and disturbing them
The birds also hang out here as you could see from the white coloring on the top of the rocks
Some of the birds and fauna in the area
The seagulls are kind of bored since they’re almost no tourists they can steal food from
This looks like a very pious, religious objective
But it’s on the side of a cannon
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Visit Durrës: Culture, Scenery, and Food Under $30

Durrës is an Oceanside town not far from the capital of Tirana is kind of a nice town to walk around in and definitely more interesting as a Oceanside city and a port to travel to Italy. This is not necessarily an expensive city. I was staying in a nice small apartment for US$25 a night near the bus station.

This is a nice motivation in the bar to get people to chat
Black Friday is also a thing in Albania surprisingly
Church of Apostle Paul and Saint Asti
I didn’t realize I was so close to Hawaii
The Venetian tower near the port
This very tropical appearance can be a little misleading since it was a little bit cold
This is the old Roman wall and defense fortification
This looks very much like a nice Oceanside city and is very touristy but not too busy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrës

They seem to be getting ready to do an EU license plate. Notice the country name on the left and then on the right the EU symbol would fit and both are in blue which is the EU standard
A campzri spritz in the evening
I would like to try this sometime
If it wasn’t raining people probably would be gathering here
In the discount store a year round Christmas decoration area which is about 1/3 of the store
Some famous Bishop
Just an old house
Down by the port
The old Roman fortification
Obviously a memorial to the protectors of Albanian independence
I was trying to take a video of this guy but he wanted his money first
A nice family friendly promenade
Famous musicians
Can you guess who all of these famous musicians are?
Places for kids to play
Watch the video below to hear the music
Durres amphitheater
The Roman amphitheater recently undergoing extensive excavation
Some nice artistic decorations
Of course I am drawn to gelato
Durres mosque
The main mosque in the city
A music store. Look at the instruments hanging in the window
This was curtained off but I saw through the openings it was not all that interesting.
My new buddy
My new Albanian buddy
More ruins
The small personal pizza was €3
There are many apartments in the cities undergoing renovations probably to rent out to touristS since there are so few hotels
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Thurso to Moray, Scotland

from the northernmost part of the mainland UK traveling down southeast toward Aberdeen you find whiskey distilleries and very interesting small towns with very friendly people to chat with.

This was brought on for the breakfast and introduced to me as “brown sauce”. I suspect this is a standard in England as well as Scotland. It has some mild “brown” dull sweet flavor, not really something I would want for breakfast.
The statue is memorializing war dead
Let me know if you see this fellow waiting on you in a restaurant
This is a nice walking street
This Thai restaurant was not open which was too bad. I would have loved to have a break from fish and chips
This fellow is forever waiting for a train at this station
This is a pretty good tasting brew, and Irish cider
This fish and chips was really excellent but I didn’t eat all of the peas since I don’t really like them. But I know they are healthy so I did what I could.
This memorializes the people who were dispossessed of their land by the Sutherlands who turned this area into huge sheep farms, forcing people into areas and jobs in the peripheries. Those who couldn’t make it in those new jobs, feed their families or find some way to survive Got on boats and went to the US, Canada, Australia and maybe one or two other places. This was the great era of emmigration which gave great people and talent to other countries.
The River Helmsdale
my hotel lobby was very comfortable.
This was my hotel which was a little difficult to understand. I couldn’t find an entrance to the breakfast area so I left for the train station to catch the train to my next stop. Normally you would expect someone to be around to help you navigate the building but there was nobody.
Here is the river Helmsdale again
Scotland is just filled with stone walls
The Helmsdale graveyard
Yes, they still have these telephone booths
A local beach looks very nice but it was too cold to take a dip
I didn’t know Shakespeare was such a great fisherman
In other Scotland breakfast and you will notice my soy sauce. That little triangle above the sausage looked so oily I decided not to eat it.
The sausage sandwich was actually pretty good
A very tasty beer
On the bus to Thurso the driver, for some reason, decided to take the side roads and we got behind some farmers taking their cows to a different field.
You’re supposed to imagine what happens if you don’t drink coffee
This is a hand written genealogy tree explaining the kings and queens of Scotland and of England up until the 1700s.
This was the best deep fried fish in a town called Huntley. You can easily find the restaurant since it is the highest rated one.
The restaurant uses real slate for the placemat
A narrow road which is very narrow and possibly slippery in the winter leads down to this little town with just a few inhabitants but it is a seemingly nice place to just relax and hang out as a Harbour venue
At the eastern end of the harbor there is a small coffee shop which you will see below. The lady who runs the place will give you some good background information and chat with you while you drink your coffee.
Many of the farms just seem to go on forever
Some old abandoned equipment on the edge of the farm
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Tirane, Albania has some very interesting treasures.

here below you will see some of the treasures indicating the history of the Albanian people mixing with the Celtic, the Hellenic, the Roman and the Turkish groups. These objects are in the national archaeological museum.

The Cyrillic alphabet is interesting to see
This reminds you of Greek art. I was corrected by the curator to say “Hellenic art”
This just shows some of the former groups of identities over 1000 years ago
Meeting People
This building displays the colors of the Albanian flag and is actually one of the large international hotels, I forget which one.
I had several questions about this. Was this a Christian opium den?
This is a small art gallery but very interesting to visit
Here is some artwork I just found very interesting and maybe typical of the area
The current map of Albania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albania

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Chivas -Strathisla distillery in Huntley, Scotland

I stayed in a guest house owned by a local well-known professional boxer who also traveled around the world as an internationally recognized boxing referee and umpire. He showed me his trophies numbering more than 50, very impressive.

Breakfast in the morning was Scottish minimalist
an interesting house next to the distillery
The distillery where Chivas’s headquarters are but where one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland still creates their own single malt which is not made in large of quantities to sell out of the general area.
Strathisla is translated as ‘narrow river’
These buildings here represent their very famous distillery, very old and a shape which determines how the whiskey is distilled. The equipment is bent sideways to accommodate the roof structure
Very limited production
The Royal salute series was originally created to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II
We were just visitors so we did not need to clock in
You can see how the equipment is created to fit inside the building which is very old
The Chivas brothers bought this distillery because they needed the water and the distilling capacity
This is where we did our tasting
From the coronation of Elizabeth II to Charles
As you probably know the Chivas series are all blended whiskeys. This one will be an alternative purchase to a very small car
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Visiting Huntley Castle: Local Brews and Historic Sites

Huntley Castle has mostly been destroyed but there are some things left that are of interest. And the town has some very friendly people at the pubs so I recommend going there, getting something to eat, maybe having a drink and talking with people.

This was the breakfast which of course was in need of some soy sauce
I highly recommend this beer, Tennant
A local chocolate ice cream they sell at the castle. Very tasty
The Gordon’s were the last grand owners of the castle and their name is permanently fixed on the front, carved in stone
This cute little cottage hotel looked abandoned but maybe it was just closed for the off-season
The fish was OK but I’m not really a fan of deep fried fish, the beans were typical England beans, nothing special, and the onion rings tasted like there was no onion inside which was the case with all of the onion rings I had on my trip. Don’t eat the onion rings but there are places where you can get some good fish.
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sailing to the outer Hebrides – Scotland

the journey to the outer Hebrides is a short ferry ride depending upon where you board. You have to make sure the weather is OK, coming back the trip was canceled due to very high winds so I had to take the ship the next day. Finding accommodations can be a little tricky since they are limited and if you’re going at the peak tourist season Things could get pretty booked up.

This was a sign on the ferry
There is a display of the navigation chart in the public area so you can see exactly what’s around, all the details including the depth and how the captain is steering the vessel. Off to the right you will see a blue spot with lettering above it. It says “NATO submarine” and the purple writing above explains that it is a submarine exercise area.
Meeting People
click “continue reading” to see the rest of the discussion
It was getting into the winter type weather so the occasional rain would produce rainbows and some of them seem to be right at my feet. It was quite an experience.