Greece is a structured and well organized country. We found a campsite by the sea for 15$ a night. Most people in this camp site seem to be here for the entire season. We really needed a good camp site this time after all the lousy ones in Bulgaria – where the beaches were nice beaches but the facilities was really terrible.

In Greece life is easy; easy to find our way, the roads are smooth, and you can find everything that you possibly need – except a Melittafilter holder for my morning coffee.

A cheep meal is at least about 10$ per person here in Greece. To be able to keep our budget we need to cook breakfast and one meal a day at home. But that is OK for a change; we have been eating out for close to three months now.

Today we took the ferry to Thassos in north eastern Greece. It is a small island, only 25 kilometers long. The car ferry was 20$ and took 35 minutes. They cars where packed unbelievably tight at the ferry.

After asking around at several camp sites we found a camp site that actually had a washing machine, we really needed that!

Cool and sunny is hard to get – but today we really had it all. Our car was parked in the shade of the threes and we had cool breeze from the sea in the morning. In the day we had a blazing sun for our solar panel. Perfect!

In this camping it is sun, swimming, piece and quiet. Today we have started to listen to a new audio book, and we have been listening for hours in the shade. It is nice to be able to do things like this.

Today our neighbors were going home to Hungary. They gave us a lot of thing that they did not want to bring home. We got a lot of useful things like candles, potatoes, rics, garlic, onions, olives, eggs, washing powder, a four kilo watermelon, vinegar, honey, butter etcetera and a few tips about Hungary from Afrodite.

We have now moved to the south part of Thassos. We found a great place that has all we need. All guests have to stay a minimum of three nights. It is like a little paradise. We even found threes to put up our hammock for the first time.

This camp site is well equipped. There is a stove, grill and refrigerator we can use and our car is packed with food. This means that we had home cooked food for breakfast, lunch and dinner today. To use the stove of the camp site cost 0,5$. For 15 minutes. We prefer not to use our own stove for dishes that requires slow cooking as potatoes, rice etcetera. The petrol we will get hold when ours is finished is probably not too good.

We have found a new favorite dish that makes you a nice person, Greek yoghurt, minced fruit, and smooth Thassos honey. Aahhh, life does not get any better than this!

Today we had a small thunder storm and the main road at the camp site turned in to a small river for a couple of hours.

It is a hard work to write for our website – in the heat, in the shadows under the grapevine, having drinking an ice-cold Mynthos or two. A cold beer is about what we can afford in a restaurant here in Greece.

Sunshine, 27 degrees Celsius, blue sky and a parasail high up in the air makes us want to go skydiving…

Bert found a hardware store in the village and decided to arrange some kind of attachments for the sunshades for the side windows of our car. Catharina sent the day at the beach by herself – almost. After 3 ½ minute a d Greek guy named Dimitris showed up and introduced himself as 36 years old and single. Catharina introduced herself as 42 years old and married. Other memorable comments; ”Ohh such a large beach mat you have…”, ”You are like a vintage wine – gets better by the years… ”. I mean, what do you say about that? When Bert showed up he vanished in a second, to show up again when Bert had left.

We decided to complete the trip round Thassos before we left. Around the island there is loads nice beaches and small bays of turquoise water framed by a dramatic scenery. We also found a marble quarry along the way.

We followed the beautiful coast towards Tessaloniki on the mainland, and stopped to take a break and enjoy the scenery. Bert took care of the washing-up.

We stopped for the night and wild camp at a nice beach in Stavros. Most of the day we stayed at the beach trying to figure out a travel plan for Albania, Macedonia, Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia and Slovenia - we decided to start with Albania.

We drove across the inland of Greece towards the west coast. The inland is very hilly and we got a nice trip in daylight and in the strong moonlight in the small hours of the morning, before we stopped to get some sleep at a parking lot.

When we got out of the car this morning we saw the sign of camping prohibited… Bert ran of to find a bakery to get some fresh bread for breakfast. He used his nose to locate it and it worked brilliantly!

This morning we also had a nice ride over the mountains before arriving in Parga. Olive groves , goats and bee-keeping are what you se here in mountains. The hard, red and dry land probably do not allow any other activities. .

Annika, we forgive you… to have told us about Parga. It is an absolutely marvelous place! Parga – is a small cozy town with a beach, small harbor and narrow alleys that climbs steep up the hillsides. Parga is truly a very beautiful place . It is like a little paradise!

We are staying in the Lichnos bay right outside Parga. Lichnos is where the beach boats from Parga are going. It is by far the nicest beach on our trip this far, and right at the beach there is a camp site. We have it all here, and we really do like this place – it is absolutely wonderful!

We have just found out why the guests are all using yellow light bulbs in the camp sites. At first we thought it was just to make it cozy, but now we know that the yellow light do not attract insects. We have bought a yellow light bulb and now we need to find hand lamp for it.

We left Parga early to go to Albania. People from Greece and other that we have met look very surprised when we say we are going to Albania. Albania has a reputation as a dangerous country, we have heard that there are 750 000 Kalashnikovs drifting around in a country with a population of only 3 million people, and that we should take the hub-caps inside the car otherwise they will get stolen. This means that we really didn’t know at all what to expect of Albania more than to be extra careful.

The border passage went smooth. As a EU citizen we did not need a visa, but we had to pay 10 € per person to get in the country and 1 € per day for the car.

Fire trenches and Mercedes cars – loads of them, was our impression of Albania. The gray, ugly, concrete fire trenches seems to be every ware in the countryside and for some inscrutable reason 80 percent of the cars are Mercedes, both old ones and new ones.

We went straint to the ”Blue eye spring” – with cool, clean and clear water coming out of a deep hole forming a little stream. It is kind of magic to swim in a natural spring. We felt cleansed to body and soul!

After that we took the winding, narrow and terribly bad road along the coast north bound from Sarande. We wild camped in a small bay where there was a restaurant . In Albania there are no camp sites, and for security reasons one should not wild camp. But this time we felt safe because the owners of the restaurant also camped beside us.

In the bar we met a really nice guy - Marin. He was very concerned about the bad reputation of Albania abroad. He told us that there have been no problems with violence for the past eight years. Marin told us a lot of interesting things about Albania – both historical and contemporary. In the evening the restaurant keeper and Marin put together a very tasty menu for us. It was the best meal we had in a long time. We had a great time with Marin.