Today I was leaving Albania and heading back to northern Greece. After the early morning bus to Gjirokaster yesterday and early morning flight home tomorrow I was looking forward to the chance to sleep in a bit today.

The hotel had a gourmet fresh made breakfast including date jam, fried eggs, and sausages. We left the hotel, headed down the long hill climb and went back to the highway to catch the bus to the Greek border.

Yesterday when we had arrived we asked locals and they said to wait here for the bus. Today however they said there was no bus. What!?. I think they were trying to scam us as a driver said he will take us for 15 Euros/2000 Lek ($20) to the border 20 kms away.

Me and my friend were on our last 1900 Lek combined and I would have looked around if I was by myself but my friend tends to panic a bit even though we were not on any kind of schedule today.

We went in the taxi and it was a 15 min drive to the border. However, he had the cheek to keep pulling over along the side trying to pick up more locals even though we had paid the last of our Albanian cash for the privilege and locals would only pay a fraction if they joined us. We also saw lots of minvan buses driving the reverse direction from the border so we could have found alternate means.

Before crossing the border locals asked us if we wanted a cab to Athens!!! I laughed so much I forgot to ask how much? We stood behind one of the waiting cars and showed our passports to leave Albania into the no mans land inbetween borders.

The Greek border control was a different story entering into the EU. Away from the cars was a long line for foot traffic. They were all Albanians and I had an EU passport so tried to goto the EU foot window but nobody was working there. My friend tried to go infront of one of the cars so we both waited to see who would get thru first.

All the Albanians in my line were from one bus so suddenly the line cleared. I showed my EU passport. When the guard asked where I lived I was thrown off and said Canada and that I had dual nationality. Now I thought he would start asking lots of questions but he just said ok and handed my passport back. Greek customs on the other hand had asked my 'white western' non EU friend all kinds of questions while ignoring me the middle eastern looking guy with an EU passport!

On the Greek side I had a schedule for the bus to Ioannina. The one thing I didnt factor was Greece is 1 hr ahead and we had to wait over 90 mins for the next bus. Ticket was 6.80 Eu ($10.20).

Expecting Albania to be the poorer neighbour this corner of Greece was infact lessor developed. The bus made a roadside stop and suddenly half a dozen scary looking young men jumped out from the bushes and trees and suddenly made for the bus. They looked more like the migrant workers than the Albanians we had left behind!

As we came into town things modernized. We drove past the airport as we scouted out the distance for tomorrow. I was also curious how the 'Euro Crisis' affected this part of Greece which isnt as touristy but the town seemed normal and doing reasonably well.

We walked from the bus station to the old quarter to find our hotel which had some historic character. With the day to relax we went first to the old citadel.

The citadel has no entrance fee but you need a ticket to enter the buildings. As the Byzantine Museum sells the tickets we decided to start in there first.

The Byzantine Museum was infact the site of Ali Pasha's palace that had been destroyed. The present building was built on its remains in the 1950s.

The ticket was 3 Eu ($4.50) which included the adjacent buildings (next entry). The museum was full of lots of Byzantine Christian artwork similar to many of the works I had seen in the Orthodox Churches in Macedonia.