Albania’s Small Towns
We could easily spend our entire 7-week Albanian stay in the capital Tirana. Comfortable, friendly, safe - it lets us settle into Living instead of Travelling. But what a shame it would be to not take advantage of easy access to gorgeous Albanian countryside and fascinating smaller towns.
We recollect how glad we were to force ourselves out of our similarly-comfortable Istanbul bubble and get to experience the cave-wonders of Cappadocia. So we block out a few weekends, grab a rental mini-car ($8/day in this shoulder season), and after 30 minutes of chaotic town traffic emerge each time into wide-open Albanian country roads, heading all four directions.
North to Kruje
We take our son and his girlfriend for an easy day-trip to Kruje, birthplace of the national hero Skanderberg. Albanians are divided on many issues, but this man who led several (ultimately unsuccessful) uprisings against the Turkish Ottoman Empire invaders in the 1400's inspires universal adoration (including a new face-shaped building - see below).
Also adored here is George W. Bush, the first US President to visit Albania. Albanians are grateful for the US role in securing Albanian independence (rather than letting it be carved up after WWII), and later for helping protect Kosovo Albanians by ending the war against Serbia ("Enough is Enough," Bill Clinton famously exclaimed.) Thanks to this, I get to have my picture taken with a statue of "Xhorxh Bushi" then buy a few too many sweets as his bakery.
Our young visitor is thrilled to get up into these "Albanian Alps" and romp around her first castle ruins. In the traditional villa-cum-museum we all enjoy getting to virtually try on traditional Albanian dress, "see" old villagers with VR glasses, and climb up into the peekaboo alcove where women could watch the action in the men's parlour to see if they needed more food or service.
West to Berat
One of Albania's UNESCO world heritage sites, Berat is well worth the beautiful 100-minute drive (more South than West - I'm taking liberties with my titles). Famously known as the City of a Thousand Windows, it turns out that's a mis-translation. Albanians celebrated the layering of candle-lit windows crawling up the mountain, but the word for "above" sounds a lot like "thousand." So really it's more like the City of Candles Like A Layered Wedding Cake. Beautiful regardless.
South to Gjirokastër
This UNESCO world heritage site is perhaps our favourite overnight trip. The best food in Albania. Hike deep into the valley to a Roman aqueduct bridge. View over the town and valley from our lovely family-owned Hotel Gjirokaster. Another old castle - used, of course, by Hoxha as a prison/torture/execution facility during communism. And just an encouragement to relax and breathe.
After dropping our bags at the hotel, we walk the town's steep cobblestone streets to an outdoor café for lunch. Nap at the the hotel, then back into old town for a bit of trinket-shopping (including old cow bells) then huge heaps of gelato. Walk up to the obilisk celebrating the opening of Albania's first school in Albanian language when it was still illegal to use local language under the Ottoman Empire rule. Then back to another outdoor café for appetizers. Stroll a bit more, then yet another outdoor café for dinner. Walk, shop, eat, repeat.
West to the Beaches
We're here in shoulder season - little rain (except when visitors come), no oppressive heat, fewer crowds, cheap car rentals. Some days we're in t-shirts, some in our down jackets, but always comfortable.
Come summer, they say Tirana gets mighty unsufferable for foreigners who flock to the beach. Durres is closest, but the day we go it's rather grey, overdeveloped and underwhelming. We should have gone to the southern beaches like Saranda, but do manage to plunge into the Ionian Sea at the very undeveloped Tale Beach up north a bit.
We didn't come for beaches and didn't get to fully indulge, but I suspect that those southern beaches along the Mediterranean would rival Italy (which we could see right across the bay) and Greece (just to the South).
At the Heart Center: Tirana
Each trip away gives the sweet reward of a homecoming. Tirana has become Home, perhaps more than any other stop we've made - 7 weeks, a good apartment, a work-out gym one block away that we go to 5 days a week, a bakery right across from the gym that we go to a bit too often...
Enough language that I can somewhat chat with the sweet old man who says I treat him with respect and asks where my "bambino" is today (older folx speak some Italian thanks to the Mussolini occupation and popular soap operas).
Enough friends from various expat circles (weekly coffee gathering, Friday night bar group, two writers groups, Spanish-speaking group...) that there's someone to share our stories with. Quite thankful that expats here don't meet simply to complain about the locals like I've avoided in other countries.
Cheap enough that we've enjoyed lotsa good food and all the affordable medical check-ups that responsible old people like us are supposed to do every year (Dental cleaning: $30. Dentist telling me I have "teeth like a teenager:" priceless.) In clinics spread out enough to require 15,000 steps a day.
We haven't had enough. We could easily join the many other expats who have come here for 3 months, or 2 years, or just packed up their California life and moved here permanently. But family calls (summer in Canada) and new horizons beckon (just bought tickets to Bangkok in September), so we once again bid farewell and hopefully-see-you-later to yet another world we have breathed deep and exhaled contentedly. Faleminderit, Shqipëri (Thank you, Albania).
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Currently in...
Mayne Island, BC, then to a family wedding in Surrey
Heading to...
Paris, Albania, Milan, then Cambodia-Thailand-Vietnam for Oct-May. Please share any sites, people or ideas by email.
I am thankful for this pleasant walk with your lovely family, a day brightener. Art
Brilliant share Ricky. The villages seemed cleaner yet cooler than Cusco, Peru (The buildings were older but the rock walls are newer) or many other South American cities. More Sarah pictures please!