One of our stops on the way to Shkoder was a small, family-run pottery
business. The man who led us through was
tired. They have their own ponds of silt
that gradually evaporate into a clay that can use and they’d been covering the
ponds in the middle of the night to protect them from the rain. He made a few simple things, re-forming them
into a lump of clay to make something else a few times. He’d learned pottery-making from an Italian
potter who wanted to pass on the skill- he emphasized over and over that it had
to be in your blood and that it could take decades to learn the right moves to
shape pieces. He and the guide had a
passionate discussion about Japanese roku pottery; that, he said, takes 50
years to learn.
There were so many pieces I could have taken home,
but knowing that I had to get whatever I bought home in one piece, I chose a
painted panel.
We asked if his parents had been in the business. He gently reminded us that such entrepreneurship was illegal under Communism (how soon we forget) and he'd learned the craft from a potter in Italy. We watched him creating at his wheel- it looked so easy! We knew it wasn't.
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| So many beautiful items but not practical when you have to fly home! |
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| I chose this plaque- easily packed and less fragile. |
Our next stop was a compound that had previously housed dissidents during the Communist era. It was now a place where wine, sausage, cheese, preserves and other foods were made.
We went downstairs to the winery and I noticed a variety called “Gheg” and remembered, distantly, a distinction I’d learned in school when I was 12 or 13- “Tosk” and “Gheg”. Yes, the guide said, I was right- Gheg is anything or person from northern Albania and Tosk is from the South. I know a lot of unmarketable stuff.
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| Logo from one of their wines. |
Lunch was one of the most extraordinary meals I've ever had both in quality and variety. It was at at farm that obtained many of its ingredients from the place we'd just visited. Our guide joked that people always vow to take a picture of every course but they forget midway. I didn't.
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| No, duck was not on the menu that day. |
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| Tomatoes with locally-made cheese. |
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| Charcuterie board- all local. I suspended my usual almost-vegetarian diet on this trip and I'm glad I did. |
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| Goat meat. |
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| Multiple desserts |
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| Note the beautiful pastry basket for the fig tart. |
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| Chocolate mousse and one other choice. |
Most of us slept the rest of the way to Shkoder!
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| Pedestrian district- restaurants, shops, museums. |
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| Display showing some of the works in Museum of Photography. I particularly liked the third from the left- two women shrouded completely in burkas. |
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| The Franciscan Church. |
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| A really beautiful cemetery I found on my random wanderings. |
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