Day One Hundred Nine - April 24

Today we are in Durres, the principal shipping port for the country of Albania. Our arrival time was 07:30 with all aboard 17:30 and Departure 18:00. The ship arrived early and was docked before the scheduled arrival time.

At 06:45 Janice was given another Covid test that by her recollection is number 11 or 12. The results for this PCR test took 48 minutes. As expected she tested negative and she was given the green light to leave our stateroom and resume normal activities. It is still a mystery that I was free to come and go from the room while she was quarantined. I would have thought they would have moved at least one of us to a different room since the ship is still only one third full.

It was also the first time our room had been cleaned in five days so clean sheets were nice although we did clean towels on demand.

Because we did not know for sure the status of Janice's test, we did not book any tours. Our fallback was a walk around the city. Once we left the port we walked directly into the city centre to see the Amphitheatre of Durres which dates back to the 2nd century AD. It was assumed to seat 20,000.

While walking through the city centre we noticed something rather strange. At least seven different people with weight scales. The locals would step on the scale and then pay the person. Some of the scales were state of the art and some were very

I am not sure where the people receive their income but many Mercedes cars were driven in the city. However there was also alot of poverty which is always hard to see.

This was a very inexpensive town that is relatively new to receiving cruise ships. We enjoyed a lunch of pizza and salad for less than 10 euros total.

On our way back to the ship we found the beach front boardwalk. The many restaurants along the boardwalk were filled with locals and their families as it was Sunday. One thing we also noticed were the many kid friendly areas with parks, amusement parks, sale of balloons etc all around the city. They definately like to spoil their kids which was nice to see.

We are now making our way to Crotone (Calabria) 182 nautical miles away, where we will spend the next five days in Italy.