See Travel Blog

Përshëndetje again from Albania.  That supposedly means hello, but I still haven’t picked up a single word of Albanian.  It is a very tricky language to master, and is very unique – there aren’t really any other languages quite like it.  (Well, that’s my excuse anyway).

It’s Sunday 24th August, and today we plan to head into Albania’s capital city – Tirana.  Dad has identified an English speaking church in the city for us to join for the day, with the service starting at 10:30am – that means we need to leave Dürres just after 9:30am.  We’re a bit concerned about the parking situation again, but we’ll set the sat nav for the church and see what we can find nearby.

That means we’ll have to leave Durrës once again.  The concept of leaving Durrës isn’t so much the problem, but rather the awful experience one must go through to do so.  

Durrës is horribly unequipped for tourism.  Infrastructure is non existent – there is just one single lane road in and out from where we’re staying, and frequently cars are abandoned / double parked in the middle of the road, totally blocking the single lane of traffic.  I haven’t seen any police or parking attendants since we’ve been here – it seems anything goes!  There are a few car parks, but why would anyone pay to use them when they can get away with just leaving their car at the side of the road?

If this place has any aspirations for tourism, they have to sort this out, noone will want to sit queued up for half an hour every time they want to get in or out of the place – to be honest it’s not worth it.

Once you’ve successfully escaped the hold that Durrës has on its visitors, you get onto the SH2 – it’s a form of highway, but the road quality is absolutely horrendous.  There only appear to be three motorways in the entire country, but at the moment there isn’t one linking Albania’s two biggest cities (Tirana and Durrës – although work is underway to upgrade the existing road to motorway standard). Of the two lanes on the current route, the slow lane is almost entirely unsuitable, as it is a patchwork quilt of uneven repairs, so everyone just stays in the fast lane.

We arrive at our destination about six minutes late – not bad considering we had to drive round the block a couple of times to find a car park, then couldn’t find the way into the church!

As we enter the church (IPA Tirana) we’re greeted by a gentleman on the door, and worship is already underway. 

It’s amazing how God can use circumstance to speak to us, and the second song we sung (Oceans) is a song with deep personal significance.  As a Christian, it’s funny how often these happy little coincidences occur!

The service was dual language – in both English and Albanian, meaning that some songs (all well known to me) were sung in both languages, and any words spoken translated.  The preacher was a lawyer, and used a few parables to explain how we should live as Christians in the dark world.  Yeast got quite a few mentions.  The poor translator got a little lost in the middle – that must be such a tough job!

After the service, we headed 2 doors up for breakfast at a place called City Art.  I went for the ‘Albanian Breakfast’.  Which had Feta cheese, cucumber, tomato (basically a deconstructed Greek salad), bread, fried eggs, baby sausages.  To be honest they had me already at Feta.  

Walking from the restaurant, the first thing which catches the eye is the enormous Namazgah Mosque.  It’s the biggest mosque in the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, and a call to prayer is playing out over the tannoy system.  

We walk as far as Skanderbeg Square, which is a large open plan piazza in the centre of the city.  From here, we have booked to join a free walking tour at 2pm.  We’re an hour early so take a few photos then head to a bar for some drinks to pass the remaining time.

Our tour guide is a guy called Arber.  He speaks with a pretty strong Dutch accent, but is entirely Albanian.  We never did find out where the accent came from!😢 

Arber starts off with the backstory on Albania, most of which is a rehash of what we heard yesterday from Bledi.  He soon moves on to talk about Tirana…

Did you know that Tirana once had dinosaurs roaming around?  That’ll be the Tirana-saurus Rex!  Or that there’s a very big scary toxic spider native here?  The Tirana-tula!  Nope just my sense of humour, none of that’s true that I know of!

Tirana doesn’t have a very long history,  it was a village first settled by the Ottomans in the 17th century.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, those sofas have a lot to answer for!  

At that point Tirana centred around a bakery, baths and mosque, and the place carried no real major significance.  Upon Albania’s independence in 1912, its leaders declared Tirana as the capital of Albania,  and that’s when things really started to progress.

Skanderbeg Square is named after the famous military leader Gjergj Kastrioti, who took on (and often defeated) the Ottomans in the 15th century.  A statue of the man himself sits halfway down one side of the square, and if that wasn’t enough, one of the new high-rise towers also bears his face.

The current square was completed in 2017, and at this point, one brick and tree was briught from every town in Albania.  That’s a nice way of including everyone!

It’s a big space, and perfect for concerts, not least national treasure Dua Lipa, who Albania recognises as one of their own (even though she was born in London).  Dua Lipa actually performed in this very square in 2022.

A number of tall buildings line the side of the square.  These include, the Tirana international hotel which was built during communist times.  It was the highest building in Albania at that time, but is now dwarfed by the Intercontinental Hotel directly behind it.

Also in Skanderbeg Square is a large national flag.  The Albanian flag has a red background, and black eagle on top.  The eagle has two beads, one looking left and the other looking right.  Why a double eagle?  Well, as they say, two heads are better than one.  The actual reason is that it was a symbol which featured on the heraldry of several noble Albanian families in the Middle Ages – not least the Kastrioti family which Skanderbeg belonged to.

The tour continues to a small mosque on the corner of Skanderbeg square, which was one of the few religious buildings to survive communism (even if they did use it to play table tennis in instead), and opposite that a charming clock tower.  Dad and I love to go up towers like these, but sadly this one is closed for the day.  We’ll try again some other day.  

Just down from these, we catch glimpse of a round stone dome beeping up above the ground.  It’s one of Albania’s many former bunkers, and unlike most of the rest, they’ve actually done something with this one – turning it into a museum of communist oppression.

Between 1944 and 1985, Enver Hoxha was the prime minister of Albania.  He was the one who converted the country into a one party communist state, emulating his Soviet hero Joseph Stalin.  

Hoxha was paranoid that one of Albania’s neighbours or enemies would invade, so he planned to install 200,000 nuclear bunkers all over the country just in case.  They spent over $6 billion, and bankrupted themselves in doing so.  Only 173,212 of the 200,000 were actually made.

The funny thing was that Albania never actually got invaded, so it was all a waste of money and for absolutely nothing.  Of course this meant there was no money for the people, and they were forced to endure rationed food, and no luxuries.  About 99% of the bunkers have now either been destroyed or are just unfit for purpose, so it’s not like they could easily be used for other things.

This exhibition is called BunkArt2, and tells the brutal story of this period of Albania’s history.  It’s not one of the most interesting or interactive museums I’ll be honest, but there are plenty of info boards to read, and photos to see.  There is another one of these up in the hills, but the tour guide tells us we can visit BunkArt1 or BunkArt2 but not both… because then we’d be wasting our money just like the communists did when building the bunkers in the first place!

Speaking of hideous wastes of money, the Pyramid of Tirana is right up there with the best of them, although fair play to the city for actually trying to make something of this!  It was built in 1988 as a museum for Enver Hoxha (they even considered making it a mausoleum for the guy), but was converted to a conference centre 3 years later one the communist regime had been toppled – clearly it wouldn’t have been particularly popular!  NATO used it as a base in the Kosovo war, and then lay dormant and derelict through most of the 2000s and 2010s.  After extensive renovation, the pyramid reopened in 2023 as a kind of tech hub.  Steps were built over the smooth sides, and a safe viewing platform up on top.  At the time of construction, this was the most expensive structure built in Albania.  You’ve gotta say – what’s the point!  As weird as this whole thing is, it is good to see old buildings given a new lease of life. 

At the Orthodox Church, we say our farewells to Arber.  They say nothing in life comes free, and the same can be said for this ‘free’ walking tour.  We’re strongly advised to leave a 10-20 euro tip.  It was worth it though. 

Dad and I ditch Mum to revisit a few of the places we’ve already been (it’s ok, she’s happy enough sat reading her kindle!). These places include BunkArt2 – although the €9 entry fee is a bit steep for what’s on offer, and the Pyramid, where dad has a strong desire to run up the 114 steps to the top.  I’m quite happy taking my time thanks very much!

Having done all that, and got the heartbeat back into the normal range, Dad and I go back to Skanderbeg Square to get Mum again before heading out for dinner.

We have a reservation at the Sky Club restaurant, where a beautiful sunset and meal awaits.  It’s a bit on the pricier side, but still cheaper than you’d find back home!

The beautiful golden glow fades over Tirana as the artificial lights begin to take hold, and it’s amazing watching busy city life unfold on the streets below.  

Upstairs from the restaurant is Albania’s only revolving bar, although it revolves so slow, you can barely tell that it’s moving at all!

It’s been another pretty full on day, and we’re fading rapidly so opt to head for home, but will return to Tirana later in the week.  

I have to say, I didn’t have high hopes for Tirana prior to coming here.  I thought it would be all soviet / communist style buildings with no soul or character.  However, my experience of the place couldn’t be further from expectation.  It’s modern, clean, bustling and there’s plenty of stuff to do.  It’s escaped the shadows of its dark history and is absolutely thriving!  Tirana would be a brilliant place to come for a long weekend.  I’d say western tourists will start catching on over the next 10 years, so would recommend you visit it soon before everyone starts jumping on the bandwagon.  

I’d even go so far to say, Tirana is the best kept secret in ‘eastern’ Europe.