Harry Potter and Apollonia
Posted on August 10, 2023 • 8 minutes • 1572 words
After our long goodbyes, we started out drive to Gjirokaster. We were in a critical part of Harry Potter, The Goblet of Fire and the kids and I were completely engrossed, begging Dan to keep reading. I never read the Harry Potter books, but always planned to when/if I had kids. I want to state I was NEVER against the books, but 7 books in a set would have taken a lot of time and when I start a series, I can’t stop! Then COVID hit and Dan went on a rampage and read all 7 books to Ben within a year…well 7 books minus 4 pages when he got choked up at the end when Harry is walking and people from his past surround him and I had to step in and read. I like to point this out often. :)
The first time around I picked up maybe 5% of the reading and of course had a million questions. Ben LOVED saying “Oh MOM!” before explaining it all to me. In April, Dan decided to read the set again, this time with Sam and the main audience, although Ben never missed a word, he reads when Sam wants to. This time around with so much reading in the car or bus or waiting for food or a museum to open, I am up to hearing about 70%.
Like I said, I was never against reading the books, but now I have to say I now have an exponential love for them. On this trip, these books have caused the boys minds to go crazy with imagination. From searching for the Chamber of Secrets or where Voldemort would have been hiding when we were in Albania, to making up their own spells with their new daily ‘wands’ (sticks), to practicing their Scottish accents and the list goes on forever. “Do you think that looks like Tom Riddle’s house?” “Who’s Tom Riddle?” “Mom!!!”
In San Marino Ben got a quill set and loves using it. If not for the books, he probably wouldn’t have known what it was when he saw it in the shop. He sits there so proudly as he acts like he knows all about the world of quills as Sam and Max look on with star studded eyes. This has caused the hunt for feathers constantly so Dan could make more.
It has gotten Ben reading even more as he reads ahead because he can’t wait for Dan to read each time and he has such a proud, satisfied look on his face when he knows what’s going to happen before the rest of us, minus Dan. Apart from the reading, Harry Potter (or something from the book) comes up multiple times a day. So many spells cast on me a day I can’t keep up. Serious discussions can erupt about things I’m still confused about. :)
In addition, it has gotten them so excited about the places we are traveling. Dragons and Victor Krum in Bulgaria, to noting the flag of Albania kinda looks like the crest of the school Krum went to (I can’t remember the name), to Albania where Voldemort was hiding. “Can we go to Romania?” “N on the license plate is for what country?” “Norway…like Norwegian Ridgeback?!” It all makes me so happy. My plan was always to eat a lot of gelato when traveling so the kids could associate traveling with gelato and therefore because they love the later, they would then love the former. Clever, right? It has not been an issue. So maybe it’s the books that are having them extra excited about traveling right now, or maybe they would have loved it just as much. Either way, Harry Potter has made our travels a bit more exciting and help pass so many hours of travel or other waiting. I’m a bit late to the bandwagon, but thanks J.K. Rowling
Okay where was I? Yes, driving to Gjirokaster and about halfway was Apollonia, an ancient Greek colony, ‘turned’ Roman town, that has slowly been excavated that I wanted to see. And I’m never one to pass up ancient ruins. We had passed a bunch of fruit stands along the road; it almost seemed that people sold what they grew on their farm right there where the farm hit the road. We got a giant melon, peppers, and cucumbers.
We thought we had missed the boat to stop at a market for food, but there was one tucked away on a small residential-ish road (yet a main road to Apollonia) that we saw someone standing outside. Dan hopped out, got our picnic staples and hopped back in. Even though the internet said that a lot of locals go to Apollinia for a picnic, at the entry there was a sign saying NO picnics! We looped back a few meters found a couple benches outside the entry gate and did our picnic there instead. Worked nicely and we had a dog visitor that loved eating the food the kids ‘dropped’.
We paid our entry fee (kids are free everywhere in Albania we found for ruins/museums/forts/etc) and walked over to the museum, which was both inside and outside. A bit nerve wracking as giant ceramic pots looked like they were just waiting for a kid to trip and knock it over.
Quick lesson on how they are made from clay, due to the silica fusing together when heated, as I tried to keep the kids far back. Lots of artifacts inside that kept the kids and our attention for a while.
Some of the ’newer’ buildings were around the museum (and housed the interior part of the museum).
Again a hot day and zero shade so we (aka Dan) picked a few places to see and started out. It was hard to miss the Bouleuteriom as we started out…it’s the photo you get when you google Apollinia.
With an amphitheater behind it and massive columns (retrofitted) with a lot of recovered façade above, we stayed and stared for a bit.
Ben even got out his field journal to sketch a bit. Max watched. There were hardly any people there, maybe 40 cars in the parking lot. Crazy that a place this amazing and vast is barely visited. I thought back to the stressfulness in Split trying to see Diocletian’s Palace compared to the blissfulness here. Room to roam, places where no one else was within earshot and more ruins that we could explore in a day.
We meandered on and had fun looking at pieces on the ground and trying to imagine how the fit together. The heaviest jigsaw puzzle in the world!
Of course, a kid had to go to the bathroom, poop bathroom, when we were really far from the museum, so I took them to a café in the middle and ordered a cappuccino so Max could poop. It was surrounded by OLD olive trees and when Dan and Ben came back around to meet up with us, we chilled for a bit as the kids played below with sticks. Always sticks.
On the walk back we found wild blackberries and views of the Adriatic.
Back to the car and onto Gjirokaster. As we headed inland a bit, we came upon amazing meandering rivers that seems split apart, just to come back together 2km down the road.
Milky blue water with mountains jetting up past the banks.
Finally, we can see just where we are going with the castle up on the hill. We pull off the ‘main’ road and start heading up. Dan directing, we seem to keep going up on a smaller and smaller road, with slicker and slicker cobble stones. I was flooring it, yet we weren’t going super fast. Dan was yelling ‘keep going! Keep going!” and I yelled back (I was stressed enough on this road in an under powered car) ‘Stop telling me that! Stop yelling!” It was not a good 90 seconds. Cars would come at us and I couldn’t stop or I wasn’t getting started again. Luck was on our side that a car was only coming at us when were could fit past. He says we are close and I see a ‘flat-ish’ spot where there are bollards in the road and I just pull there and stop. Dan thought we ‘there’ and I said that I was done driving so either way everyone was getting out and I was going to deal with the car. We weren’t supposed to be stopped there, so we caught the eye of a policeman who told us just as much. We explained I was dropping them off and he understanding to tell us where the bed and breakfast was and where I should park.
Where he told me was full, so I found a place to sit and wait for Dan to get me info from where we were staying. 10 minutes later Dan calls from a random number and then sends me a location where to park. I pull up, the owner backs his car out, I pull in and then he drive us back to where we had unloaded. We then walk half a block to find our kids with his wife eating chocolate she gave them and Sammy hugging her. Off to a good start…minus Dan and me yelling at each other in the car. He apologized. :)
Continued on https://travelingengineer.com/blog/2023-08-11-gjirokaster/