Llogara Pass (Qafa e Llogarasë) is a mountain road on the Albanian coastline at an elevation of 1.043m (3,422ft) above sea level. It’s classified as one of the best coastal drives in the world by some motor enthusiasts.. It’s certainly an incredible experience, the sheer vastness of the mountains and the hairpin bends to name but two things. At one point I had to reverse down the pass to enable a large oncoming truck to get round the bend. It’s things like that that improve your driving skills :-)!

There were several very pretty villages perched high on the way and I stopped and had a coffee and a wander around Vlora. There must have been some local decree on keeping all the window shutters wooden and the buildings white, which made it very beautiful and reminded me of what old Himare would look like before it had largely crumbled away.

Then it was back on the road, slowly downhill passing the locals selling honey. I stopped and bought some pine honey (I think that’s what it is or maybe just pine sap!) from an old man and we had one of those heartfelt interactions in which neither understood what the other was saying but we got the sentiment perfectly.