Valbona

Valbona is both a river and an eponymous town. It is high in the mountains in northeast Albania, not too far from the Montenegran border. The family farms are spread out along the narrow valley floor. We stayed at the family farm of a family who has been in that compound for a couple hundred years. This past winter they got about two meters of snow, and were snowed in for a month.

This is a grist mill that operated with water diverted from the river. We were told it has been here for "centuries."

Haystacks and "corn stacks" on the valley floor.

These are eggs stuck on sticks in the garden. We were told they had no significance other than decoration.

Closer up view of corn stacks.

From my bedroom window looking up the river valley. There were two houses, this one and the one we stayed in. The owner lives in Byram Currie, about 20 miles or one hour away. His family still lives in the house. The old way, which young people in Tirana now refer to as the way they do things "in the village" the new wives would move in with their new husband's family, and the family all lived together in these compounds. This is in blood feud country, and I've been told the reason there is no "town," but rather the families live spread out up and down the valley, is to create distance between them.

The little smoke house attached to the farm house provides heat for both.

The Valbona River. It reminded me a lot of the Olympic Peninsula -- the end of September the river is about five feet wide and a foot deep; in April the gravel bed will be all water.

Part of what they call the Albanian Alps. There is an international park now comprising parts of Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo. This part of Albania has always been Catholic -- you'll be delighted to know Albania has provided four Popes to the Church (The last one in the early 1700s).