Withtwenty seven kilometers in three hours ten“,” he says, knowing he is lying. The second is ten kilometers and just a couple of minutes longer. The third tells his story, passes through Valona, turns inland and then makes a wide turn. One hundred and eighty-seven kilometers in three and a half hours. This mountain does not form, I tell myself, it will partly consist of a highway, of course, these highways, one lane in each direction, with carts, foot people, but still a highway, but, first of all, it is not so. pass through Logara. I decide to take this one, maddening the navigator, who informs me in the first good hour that he has found a shorter route that will save me thirteen minutes, you already know which one. I spent the first good hour in Valona, I must say, in line, as a joke, I just got out and I’m still in a good mood, about my constant name-calling of Albanians at the wheel, underdeveloped. When we finally leave Valona without having crossed paths with Meloni, I’m still a little less in a good mood, because traffic is destructive even in the morning. We follow the same road to Berat, quietly. Ordinary tire workers, onion sellers, risky Mercedes Benz overtaking. Then, look at you, we turn towards Saranda, the largest city center near Ksamil, which, I think, is a little more than a village. And then a bitter surprise awaits us: we begin the ascent. Near us from time to time flows a beautiful river with white stones, like the Tagliamento, but then we go up and down, and we are completely surrounded by mountains, high and commanding. No sharp turns like Llogara, let’s be clear, but still mountains, and to say that after spending an hour in line in Vlore, I thought I was entitled to the only straight line straight to the house in Ksamil, without even half a bend. In the meantime, and know that I am writing these words, sitting on a sunbed in Ksamilit, the so-called beach of the three islands, in Ksamil, then I will tell you. In any case, in a four hour journey, yes, it took us four hours, damn google mops, we saw amazing scenery, the mountains here are very beautiful, we saw a beach on the river, with rare sunbeds and umbrellas, in a kind of island accessible by boatwe saw a mountain literally cut open to make way for a road full of tunnels over a kilometer long, and we saw a mountain restaurant that offered customers an impressive waterfall on the terrace, suggested by the guy above their heads, which he cleaned. a roof with a bucket, which is not even in a five-star deluxe. Then we arrived, and when we reached the address that Violeta sent us via Whatsapp, we could not find the house. We made calls, saw that my wife speaks English and Italian, and Violetta speaks Albanian, then we waited a little more, and finally Violeta’s daughter arrived, who gave us Violeta’s niece, her daughter, she speaks English. House around the corner, with a beautiful garden and parking space. It looks like a village, not too different from the one in our south, shabby streets, chaos, restaurants and shops. From what we saw until we got to the beach, it looked almost subdued, nothing to write home about for tourists. Instead the beach is very fulland also a few italians, of course, with umbrellas and comfortable sunbeds, but in some places not too far (we choose one right in front of a large island where you can swim, on a platform well spaced out, twenty euros well spent).
I’ll take a bath now, but I’ll be back later, I swear.
Here I am. So we drove south, right around the corner of Corfu, right in front of the three islands, you enter the water on a beach full of people, with the usual jerks circling on jet skis, and you can’t help but notice three things: the water is just as clear, as in the lonely bays visited in recent days, the water is cold, as is everywhere here in Albania, and colorful fish that approach you as soon as you enter the water, regardless of people. I listen to non-melodic music, arrived, and after finding a parking ten meters from the beach, an unspeakable kick in the ass, it made me hopeless, and also hearing how many people speak Italian, much more than anywhere else, but even if I would like to find something to criticize, I confess, it is difficult for me. Of course, tomorrow is the middle of August, and I think it’s even worse, even if tomorrow we planned a tour towards Saranda, and not here, but it’s not like that, if we were in Italy, we would have all the beaches to ourselves, often we don’t even go to the beach in the middle of august, just to avoid the mess. Revitalize Staying Here at Xamilit, Col. the roar of jet skis just to dilute the shitty music coming from the speakers of the chalet, the quite familiar discussion of the tweet of Lucio Malan, who, the same leader of the group in the Senate of the Brothers of Italy, as soon as Meloni sails towards Vlora, attacks La Stampa, which he wrote an article that Vacation in Albania pay up to 250% less than in Italyso he, Malan, said that if that was the case, compared to a holiday of 1000 euros in Italy, not only would Albania not have to spend anything, but they would have to give us 1500 euros as change, just think about yourself who he controls us, I point out, while my wife and my son Tommaso, a fourth-year student of the Higher School of Applied Sciences, launched into an incredible official defense of Malan, agreeing with him against all logic, continuing to say that, obviously, everything was just like I said, only I didn’t explain it well (I did the classics, not to mention that I can say something about math without being treated like Conchita Di Gregorio refers to German influential people?). Now that I am surrounded by enough Italians, I would like to start dealing with the Albanians. It’s not that I haven’t done this until now, always filtering the sensations that have influenced my judgment and therefore my opinion from time to time, but in a more concrete way. Of course, I know that what you have just read looks like my hands, some colorful expressions of mine, some generalized and sharp judgments. Of course it is. But even if I believe that a writer should not explain anything at all, unless his explanation, even didactic, is an integral part of the narrative, I think of maximalist fathersConstantly on and off the page, I am also aware that sometimes what I say can be hard to decipher, which ends up making me say things I don’t want to say, in particular by giving out a radically chic version of myself. which I almost dislike the costumes, at times even rather crudely racist, even further away from me than the figure of radical chic. Right now I feel like my wife when she’s pushy, a workaholic telling people who may have known me all my life that I’m “always joking” or that I like “always joking” which is sure to ruin my life. the effect of the same jokes and made me pass for a jerk who, for the sake of a joke, would sell his mother. Consider that I have not told you anything, let’s talk about the Albanians. One thing that caught my eye when I saw them is that although there is a general tendency to say that we Adriatic people also want to be Mediterranean, they are very similar, that “one person – one race” which is actually used more for the Greeks, a few strokes from here, in fact, Italians and Albanians have little, almost nothing in common. Of course, if you remember the stereotype of a southerner, dark-haired, dark-skinned, even a little physically developed, often here I am, full, looking almost haggard, like Vito Catozzo and his wife, one could find a certain number of answers here, but in general I think that the differences more than similarities, just as I think that the well-being of people affects the appearance of people much more noticeably than we do. To say teeth, and I say this knowing full well that I have terrible teeth (during covid, not being able to show them, I almost felt relieved).