The trip between my city and the capital is 5 hours of curvy roads high in the mountains. This leaves you with lots of time to look out the window. One day I noticed that outside of the town Burrel there are bridges in the middle of nowhere. Giant concrete monstrosities 100 feet high.

My officemate told me that these were the remains of an unfinished rail project. When communism ended so did the project which was only 75% complete.

These photos were taken when I walked part of the trail of the tracks in june 2013.

Getting to the “trail” is pretty easy. The main road between that region’s cities runs parallel to the trail at a close distance. Id recommend walking it klos-> burrel or burrel->ulez. See the Google map that I made.

Along the klos – burrel segment there is a village hotel and restaurants. On the burrel-ulez segment there are only villages.

There is a section in Rreshen with a massive bridge and perhaps and abandoned tunnel. I haven’t walked the Rreshen segment.

Do not attempt walking between the burrel and rreshen segments. It cannot be done on foot. A boat is necessary.

One project idea was formally converting the “right of way” of this old railroad into a trail for people who like villages, small scale agriculture, and nature. check out the short proposal [pdf]

imgur album with all photos

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