Albania-Montenegro, around Skadar

 

There, the Adriatic Sea at last.  I've followed this east to west path since Amisos in Bithynia, in Turkey.  At this point I'm finally ready to swing north.

I know they're just dots on the map above, but these are real places and I find them somewhat interesting.  Take Virpazar, for example, on the left-center, just off Lake Skadar.  A quainter little village couldn't be asked for, just 1.56 km from the lake's algae-ridden shore ... so, in fact, a little port village, though that's not plain on the map above.  The layout is plainly made for a D&D adventure, with it's circular group of houses and the all-important bridge.

There's next to no information on wikipedia, but a tourist link (written in Bosnian) translates as follows by chatGPT:

"Virpazar is a small town on Lake Skadar, with many attractions and tourist activities, and an excellent starting point for numerous hiking tours.  One of the main offerings for tourists is boat trips on Lake Skadar.  In recent years, more and more tourists have been enjoying bird watching. If you didn't know, Lake Skadar is the largest bird habitat in this part of Europe. Lake Skadar is a "bird paradise" with 280 species, including rare ones such as pelicans and cormorants. It's interesting that the seagull, as a marine bird, nests on a freshwater island in Lake Skadar. The rare pelican has become the emblem of the lake.  Don't miss the opportunity to savour dishes and excellent Montenegrin wines that will surely be offered in local restaurants."

There are numerous images of Virpazar attached to GoogleEarth as well.  I like this one:

I want to stress that I've deliberately chosen real places to put on these maps, any one of which can be searched for through Google, Wikipedia or other sites.  If you do choose to run characters somewhere on the maps provided here, be sure and look them up to see what facts there are that might interest your imagination.