#folksytravel Archives • Page 11 of 52 • Folksy Travel by Bill Smale

November 22, 2024November 22, 2024

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.

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

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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.

November 20, 2024November 20, 2024

Orkneys – Skara Brae and Pict remains

the Orkneys have so many of these Pict structural remains going back as far as 6,000 years ago. It’s a great place to go around by car. Bus travel is a little bit difficult since there aren’t many buses and they are not running frequently. So plan your trip well in advance.

This is the home of the earl or Duke or Lord or marquee or whatever who discovered these Pict ruins.

Elizabeth, the queen mother, visited this home at least one time and even signed the guest book as you can see here

This is one of the ancient bird houses where the shit is used for fertilizer, the eggs and the birds themselves are food. And these birds help keep the insects away from the crops.

November 19, 2024November 19, 2024

Et hem Bej Mosque – Tirana – worth a visit

this is the main mosque in Tirana.

November 17, 2024November 17, 2024

Tirana Albania walking around town

Tirana seems fairly busy but more like a small German town. The infrastructure is needing a lot of investment and there are some inconveniences like needing to buy bottled water since the tap water is not recommended as drinkable. But once you get inside a restaurant or café you find it very nice and clean and people are very polite and attentive. It’s actually a very pleasant city to walk around. The buses are not quite understandable since Google maps shows them with numbers and even the city designated transport maps show the buses with numbers corresponding to the routes, none of the buses have numbers indicating the route and many don’t show exactly where they’re going. The bus stops are just small standing signs with a bus icon. But I found people very helpful and responsive so if you were to take a bus just ask where the bus is going or tell them where you are going and they will let you know if you should be on that bus.

Most of the food and beverages are served outside on the small covered area at the Brussels South Charleroi Airport (CRL) which is really not very close to Brussels. I think they ran out of space at the terminal and found this the quickest way to expand services. This was where I boarded my flight for Albania.

A red glass of wine and a cheeseburger seemed to be the right thing after my arrival in Tirana. The hamburger tasted good and was not as expensive as most of Europe. The service was also very good at this bistro, Bistro Park.

The view from my apartment which was about US$37 a day for the one bedroom complete with a living room kitchen area stocked with everything I needed to do my own cooking, a pretty nice apartment. Most of the prices for these apartments were very reasonable, Maybe a little bit more than what I paid . it seems there is not quite enough hotel space in this country so people and companies rent out apartments and you can expect a nice apartment like this to be somewhere around twenty US dollars to US$40 a night depending upon the city and location.

A very communist style road, very wide and long leading out of the city but not the main road by any means. This country overturned the communist government in the 1990s and is now very actively becoming a tourist destination for people from all over the world.

Just an apartment complex area near the huge road above.

Everywhere you go you find cafés like this where people are drinking coffee or water or some other drink and they tend to double also as bars so you can buy alcoholic drinks.

I visited this place twice because the squid (this version was really cuttlefish) was cooked perfectly and the rice was tasty as well. This lunch was US$13.

This electrical system brought back memories of Thailand or Lao. But those two countries have much more extensive and artistic wire confusion everywhere.

Walking to a small restaurant managed by the son of a college friend. This is just a typical neighborhood apartment area

Southern barbecue at the “Holly smokes” Southern barbecue restaurant open as a regular restaurant but also as a meeting place for the “Christian community “and people interested in that religion. The two fellows running this place have been in the city, from the US, for a few years and really enjoy Albania. The food was very nice. Normally people would have some bread (bun) with the pulled pork but that was too much for me so I just had the meat contents.

This bus had a destination indicated but no bus number. A circle around the center of the city is covered by the “green line”. Most of those buses are green but some are not but they do say “green-line” on the front of the bus. To pay for the bus you just get on and there is somebody walking up and down to collect the fee which in the city is about 40 US cents.

Not the most attractive main waterway running through the city but I expect over the years they will make great improvements here.

The old bridge in the city, very attractive.

I didn’t translate the plaque on the outside but something to do with a monument to the communist something or other

Bunk’art museum highlighting the history of Albania since the founding of the country.

In 1960s communication center when the party (Maoist) controlled everything. The communist party was overthrown in the 1990s and the oppression of the people is on display at this museum.

Worse than schizophrenic. I am again having a conference with myself, shades of Prague .

I think you can appreciate the symbolism here

On the map this is indicated as the cultural center but it seems to be used mostly for large crowd entertainment such as the opera. This is in the main Square.

I had to try this restaurant again. This time it was squid, 200 g so it came to US$22. It was delicious. This is the traditional meat and fish restaurant at the corner of Rruga Reshit Petrela and Rruga e Barrikadave. It is not expensive and it’s all local food.

Name brands in the local shopping mall. Conad is the nationwide supermarket.

Grilled pork ribs without hardly any bone on the plate was cooked perfectly and very delicious. I asked for some sauce and what they had was ketchup which I did not use, of course. My lunch came to about US$10

I found what I have been looking for all my life, a UFO university

The intercontinental is also here. I think by the size of the building they are trying to make up for the lack of hotel space.

Every time I walked by this statue they had police standing outside. I am not sure why because I never asked.

The history of the pride of the Albanian people.

I have seen some of the strangest architecture here, this one obviously not finished

November 10, 2024November 10, 2024

Orkney islands the second time

the first visit to the Orkneys I didn’t have a car which made it extremely difficult to go and see what I wanted to see so I went back to the mainland, rented a car and went by ferry to the Shetlands and then back down to the Orkney before returning to the mainland.

Some old archaeological fines go back 6000 years. People lived up here at that time and this is one of the large settlements uncovered

The purpose of this was to provide a nesting place for birds. The bird poop would be used for fertilizer, the eggs and the birds themselves for food and of course the birds would eat the insects around the farm . Below you see the bird poop and droppings from the birds nests above

There is a very large house here owned by a very rich family from long ago and when the ocean came smashing on the shore from a storm it exposed parts of this pict village. So the owner of the land did the excavation and now it is quite a tourist attraction

Inside the big house there was a photo of the Duke of Windsor, the one that became Edward VIII and also this signed visitor book by the Queen Mother, the mother of Elizabeth

This ring of standing stones has been here for more than 4000 thousand years

And now it’s time to get back to the mainland on a very nice and relaxing ferry complete with Shop, bar and restaurant

November 10, 2024November 10, 2024

Alness – Dornoch Firth Scotland

this is one of the very beautiful areas in the Highlands

Carbisdale castle. You need a reservation to get through the gate and to view the castle

Late October was the perfect time in this area. The fall colors were beautiful

November 7, 2024November 7, 2024

Harris and Lewis – the outer Hebrides

one of the famous products from the island of Harris which is actually a continuation of Lewis, is Harris Tweed. I bought a Harris Tweed jacket in 1985 and I thought “Harris” was the name of the company produced the jacket. But it refers to handwoven wool tweed produced on the island of Harris and no other place in the world. Many products will import the tweed from Harris, create a product and ship all over the world and even back to Scotland. But the tweed needs to be certified by the association of Harris Tweed producers and therefore gets the standardized label “Harris Tweed”. Asking around I found there are probably over 200 people dedicated to weaving this product by hand.