FIM EUROPE TRAVELS
(where even bicycles and animal-drawn carts look at ease) and enter Scutari where we lodge in the central, small and comfortable hotel Tradita, which has maintained the architecture and the finishing of an old farm. We are allowed to park our motorbikes in the inner garden where they serve us a wonderful dinner; we're
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actually sitting at the table with our travelling "companions", despite our ladies' disappointment. Scutari, as well as the rest of Albania, is unrecognizable to me. In 1994, I had the chance of visiting this Country on my motorbike with some friends from the Moto Club Roma - some of them are here with me now – on
an official invitation from the newly emerged motorcycle association. The country had just come out of a long and dark period of dictatorship, which had totally isolated it from the rest of the world and had actually halted its development at the beginning of the century. It was a fascinating experience, almost like diving 100 years back in time. Albania hadn't yet been hit by the crisis which, shortly afterwards, was caused by the scandal of financial companies leading to a mass emigration. Nowadays everything has changed; I'd say improved. The signs of a terrible past have been cancelled: lots of houses and buildings of that age have been dismantled and, above all, thousands of bunkers which studded each part of the territory, countryside, mountains and beaches - as spots on the skin of someone infected with plague - have been knocked down. The streets are now worthy of this name and host a heavy traffic of any kind of vehicle. Our itinerary includes crossing Albania heading southwest towards Okrid Lake, another pearl of the Balkans
FIM Europe Mag 1/2017