Zvernec - Narta Lagoon

A few kilometers on the north of Vlore is located the second biggest lagoon in Albania. It is called Narta, and it is well known for its production of salt. When you are driving from Fier to Vlora you will observe on left side of the road big mountains of sand, they are really salt of the Narta lagoon. Additionally there is a great biodiversity of plants and animals on the lagoon. On the 13 century it was constructed a Byzantine church in a small island in the middle of Narta lagoon. With the time the church was converted into a Monastery, and nowadays Zvernec island is a mistery place really worthy a midday visit. There is a beatiful wooden bridge that joins the Albania land with the island.

Shkopet

Shkopet is the village you find between the rocks when you drive from Tirana to Burrel. Close to the village there is also a dam which produces hydroenergy. Shkopet has always surprised me by the rocks and the clean water of the river Mat. Climbing the rocks is still my pending assignment, fortunatelly this time i could enjoy the adventures to hike through a traditional trail together with a peaceful turnning back to the starting point on kayak.

The traditional trail goes parallel to the road that drives you to Burrel. The starting point is the restaurant Vellezerit Malci, just on right passing the tunnel on the end of Shkopet village (if you drives direction Burrel).

Alex is the person in charge of the restaurant, in summer they serves meals but in low season just cafes. He is an expert mountaineer. He took me to the other side of the lake by boat, and this is really where the trekking starts.

You have 3 exits (bridges) if you do not want to get wet. Depending how far you want to go it is up to you choosing one of them.

The path sometime is a little bit abandoned, so you may need to open the path through the bushes. I lost once the trail after the second exit, and on the way point "Find the way" I returned back to the trail.

To come back to the starting point you can jump into the several "Furgons" that drive from Peskopia or Burrel to Tirana. In my case I was lucky to enjoy the way back Kayaking down the lake. See the track: http://es.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=3600319

Beskidy Ustron-Jaskowiec

The Jaskowiec valley together with the city of Ustron is a very popular are for many kind of tourism. In the past the principal atracctions were the beatiful hikes, skiing lifts as well as the thermal baths. Nowadays the tourists areas are getting more a more sofisticated as well as dynamical. Tourists are requiring more and more atractions.

A good example of these tourist development evolution is the municipality of Ustron in Beskidy. Many tourist recreational parks have been build on last few years replacing meadows and forest with long tobogans, extrem park, modern hotels and abandoning the older one. Also there is a big natural park where all the family can watch wild animals. The ski lifts are even opened in summer as many mountain bicyclers use them to enjoy the downhill.

We use the skilift to avoid climbing 230 meters.

00030 from geonomon on Vimeo.

Later we just follow the ridge doing a loop to arrive to the beautiful Góralska Chata. Here you can enjoy the traditional mountain food. Góralska Chata is accesible by car, so for sure you will find many people.

Later in 40 minutes following the red lines you will easily find the starting point.