Albania: From Valbona to Tirana via Lake Komani, 17 September 2012

We went up at 3 in the morning to take the small Ferry which departs from Fierza at 06:00 in the morning and arrives in Komani at 08:50

We took the local bus called Dragoba down the lake

Some clever locals had taken a public bus and built a ship's hull around it. This is the local waterbus service that that ply the long, sinuous waters of Lake Komani.

Previously there was to big car ferries operating on the lake. As of June 2012 the car ferry is no longer running. The new highway connecting the coast with Kukes and Kosovo has made it redundant. But the small bus-boat is still running and full with passengers. The passengers aboard the Dragoba were mostly going to or from home – we made a lot of stops at tiny landings, not much more than a few rocks, so that people could jump on board or ashore or collect packages.

Lake Komani is the result of the Drini River being dammed. The steep mountains and narrow valleys ensured that the new reservoir retained the narrow shape of a river rather than that of a wide lake. Some times it looks like you are driving straight into the rocks

Lake Komani is a dammed lake, running some forty kilometers through the heart of the Dinaric alps.

As desolate as the lake seems, its shores are actually inhabited by a few hardy families. Clinging to the cliff-like sides of the mountains are tiny farms, not much more than hovels with a few square feet of plowed earth and a handful of goats.

These people, almost totally cut off from the world around them, rely on boats to get anywhere and on the ferry to bring them any supplies or mail.

From Komani we went with the minibus to Rozafa castle, a castle near the city of Shkodër, in northwestern Albania. It rises imposingly on a rocky hill, 130 metres above sea level, surrounded by the Buna and Drini rivers. Shkodër is the capital of the District of Shkodër, and is one of Albania's oldest and most historic towns, as well as an important cultural and economic centre. Due to its strategic location, the hill has been settled since antiquity. It was an Illyrian stronghold until it was captured by the Romans in 167 BC. The fortifications, as they have been preserved to date, are mostly of Venetian origin. The castle has been the site of several famous sieges, including the siege of Shkodra by the Ottomans in 1478 and the siege of Shkodra by the Montenegrins in 1912

Swallowtail, Svalehale (Papilio machaon)

Bellflower, Klokkeblomst, Campanula

View over Lake Shkodra from the Rozafa castle, a massive lake just west of Shkodra, 60% of which is in Montenegro. Lake Shkodra is in fact a former sea bay that was cut off from the Adriatic when the sea levels dropped, thousands of years ago. The lake is the largest in the Balkans at 41km long and between 370-530 square kilometres, and the lake surface varies between 5 and 10 metres above sea level depending on the season (lowest in winter). As its depth is up to 60 metres, the bottom of the lake is well below sea level, making it a so-called cryptodepression.

We had our lunch in a nice restaurant just next to the Drini River. The restaurant had its own little zoo with local mammals and birds.

Lynx

Eagle

Drini River