ALBANIA: Tirana, Berat, Djirokaster

Getting to Albania was challenging. İ was told that Pogdorica,Montenegro's gritty capital, would have buses to Tirana but that wasnot true. From Pogdorica İ had to take a taxi to the border, walkacross, talk down the Albanian entrance bribe and get an Albanian taxito Skhroda, a northern hub in Albania. İ was horrified when we enteredSkhroda. Horsecarts mixed with old bicylcles and stolen Mercedesnegotiated their way over the cracked road. On the sidewalk İ spottedslaughtered goats bleeding onto piles of used tires. From the mainsquare dominated by a huge socialist scultpure İ took a bus to Tirana.İ walked around Tirana all day in the heat and rush hour traffic foundthe place a bit overwhelming and devoid of charm. At that point İthought about just skıpping the rest of Albania and heading to Greece right away.

TIRANA

Colorful apartment blocks in Tirana. The new, popular mayor is an artist and has painted Tirana's drab apartment blocks.
Old folk in Tirana


Albania is one of the most pro-American countries in the world, largely because Bush went there a couple years ago.An amazing meal in Tirana

BUT. Albania turned out to be pretty cool after all, after a day ofgetting used to. On the second day İ went to Berat, a central Albaniantown that has preserved neighborhoods of traditional 19th Centuryhouses and a really sweet hilltop castle with great views of the wholevalley. The place had a much slower tempo than Tirana and İ got torelax a bit. At dinner İ ended up hanging out with two İsraelipensioners who, among other things (including how İ should volunteerat an İsraeli kibbutz), told me that they were spending three monthsin Albania with the aim of guiding İsraeli tour groups through thecountry. They figured that İsraelis wanted safe new exotic countriesto go to and that Albania sorely needs the tourism so this has becometheir great retirement project. They said that the almost completelack of English is holding Albanias tourism back and İ definitelyagree with that.

BERAT




On the hilltop fortress

On the third day İ headed south in a shared taxi to Djirokaster, notfar from the Greek border. This city also has picturesque traditionalneighborhoods and yet another impressive hilltop castle. While there İran into three Peace Corps volunteers on the fourth day of their twoyear stay in Djirokaster. (They have plenty of couch space if anyoneplans on passing through). One of the volunteer's job is to help theAlbanians format the town to attract more tourists. So he walked mearound the place and asked my input on what it was like as a visitor.We came up with a million ideas, from more signs to an İnternet Cafeto a castle music festival. Djirokaster is a pretty amazing place butlike most of Albania is currenly a bit too raw and underdeveloped toattract as many visitors as its coastal neighbors. Still it's worth avisit and İ would recommend it.

DJIROKASTER

The countryside on the way to Djirokaster

Djirokaster

Djirokaster was the birthplace of Enver Hoxa, Albania's awful Communist strongman. Its the 100th anniversary of his birth which local communists made sure to remind everyone.

Two random and amusing points to illustrate how Albania sort ofmarches to its own drum...

1. BUNKERS. Enver Hoxha, the Communist strongman up to 1985, wasconvinced that the rest of the world cared enough about his country towant to invade it so he ordered 700,000 concrete domed bunkers to bebuild all over the country. Thats one for about every ten people sothey're basically everywhere. They were obvıously built to beindestructible so nobody can get rid of them now.

2. STOLEN CARS. İ wasnt joking. Albania is one of Europes poorestcountries but Mercedes are everywhere. At first İ thought that theyall belonged to the infamous Albanian mafia but there are simply toomany of them. Considering that a new Mercedes runs at about ten year'sincome for an average Albanian, something is amiss. İ learned from anumber of Albania-savvy people that Albania is the end point ofEurope's stolen car industry. İf your car gets stolen in Rome, it willprobably be darting around Tirana within the week. Most developingcountries pirate DVDs and software--Albania pirates cars.