Përshëndetje!
Chester here to cover our ten days around Albania. What a country! Raw and beautiful, Albania surprised us, amazed us, and occasionally pushed us outside our comfort zone. More than anything though it was the extreme juxtaposition of the old and the new that really left an impression: new Mercedes sedans sharing road space with donkey-drawn carts, hip new cocktail bars in the shadow of dead communists' mausoleums, art museums deep underground in abandoned bunkers, and so much more.
I will try to explain what we learned about how all this came to be. On reflection, we learned about Albania's history in reverse: from seeing the ongoing tourism boom in Northern Albania, to understanding the repressive Hoxha regime in Tirana, and finally getting an impression of a much older Albania on our visit to Berat. Hopefully, in writing about this journey in the same way we took it will end up being at least a bit as illuminating for you as it was for us.
Northern Albania
After a dreamy Sunday in Herceg Novi, it was back to the workweek and our task for the day was to get ourselves into Albania. That took two buses, one held up in unending traffic as we wound through the resort towns lining Kotor Bay, and the other from Montenegro's capital to Albania without a whiff of A/C to cool us off. Nevertheless we made it to Shkodër, the largest town in northern Albania by the afternoon and checked into our hostel on the northern edge of the city.
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| Scenes around Shkodër |
Our hostel,
Florian's Guesthouse, was our base for exploring the region and our host Florian also helped us with transport around the region. The guesthouse was very cozy, set on the family's small agricultural property. Florian's mother cooks a delicious, veggie-centric Albanian feast for guests
every night using veggies from the garden which we got to enjoy twice, complemented by wine made by
Florian's dad which was really excellent.
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| The ground of the guesthouse. |
Dinners were shared communally and in talking with Florian and the other guests, we learned a bit more about the recent history of the region. The guesthouse had opened in 2010, which is roughly the time that tourism started to pick up. Albania had been recovering from a very rough few years in the late 1990s, when the country went through economic collapse and civil war initiated by widespread government corruption (essentially state-run pyramid schemes). Albanians responded enthusiastically to this trickle of tourism, opening guesthouses, restaurants and tour businesses. However with a government focused elsewhere, the development for tourists has at times been haphazard as Albanians have sought to make the most out of the booming tourist economy.
Our first excursion in northern Albania was a whole day excursion to the Shala River. This was a long and bumpy bus ride followed by a boat trip over Kolmani Lake, a relatively young reservoir that serves as the hydropower resource for much of northern Albania. As it is a mountain reservoir, there were lots of dramatic cliffs and mountains to admire as we made our way to where the Shala River meets the lake.
The meeting of the lake and the river is a gorgeous spot, a long river beach surrounded by steep green hills. The river itself is crystal clear and cold and a stunning turquoise. It is easy to see why this is a tourist draw and the area has become quite developed. The area is definitely in danger of becoming overdeveloped, but for now it feels like a moderately busy beach club. We enjoyed relaxing in beach chairs and swimming for a few hours in the cold and clear water before lunch and the long journey back.
Our second excursion took us to the high mountains for an overnight stay. Our guide Ridvan picked us up in the morning and we zipped out of Shkodër towards Theth, the village area we would be staying in. Sheltered in a bowl of the Accursed Mountains, Theth for a long time was an isolated region within an isolated country, a double isolation that allowed old traditions like blood feuds to thrive long after they had died out elsewhere in Albania.
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| On the road to Theth. |
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| Approaching Theth |
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| The Theth Valley. It is not hard to see how this would be an isolated area. |
However, it didn't take long after the fall of communism for tourists to discover the alpine majesty of Theth and today a steady stream are visiting to appreciate the beautiful vistas and quality hiking. The rapid increase in tourism has led to a rapid increase in development in the area, bringing prosperity but also chaos with government guidance on development ranging from nonexistent to inconsistent. There had been some recent conflict after the government demolished some illegally built homes shortly before we visited.
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| The central church in Theth, rebuilt recently by Albanian-Americans. |
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| Blue Eye waterfall |
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| Tourists cooling off near the Blue Eye |
Though we enjoyed touring around with Ridvan and hiking to the Blue Eye waterfall, the highlight of our time in Theth was probably our hotel. Leaning into the honeymoon vibes, we opted for a luxury chalet hotel which was very attainable on our budget at Albanian prices. The views from our room were astounding and we loved having dinner and sleeping under such a majestic vista.
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| A dinner and a view fit for our honeymoon. They aren't all like this. |
Tirana
The capital of Albania is Tirana, which was our next destination. We stayed in the leafy Blokku neighborhood for three full days, which was more than adequate. Our first two days were a little limited by a brief but brutal heat wave that pushed temperatures up to 105F, forcing us inside as even shaded areas were stifling at those temps, but we still made the best use of the cooler periods in the morning to check out museums.
The museums we visited acquainted us with the next period back in time in Albania's history: The brutal totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha, which lasted from the end of World War II to 1990. Albania was a battleground in during the war and it was communist partisans liberated Albania from Nazi
occupation. The leader of those partisans, Hoxha took
advantage of the partisan's popularity to establish a soviet-style
communist state and put himself at its head. He then proceeded to kill
off the opposition and run the country with an iron fist for the next 45 years.
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| Enver Hoxha watches over a meeting. |
As we saw in the fascinating House of Leaves museum inside a former secret police office, Hoxha's
sigurimi ran a
network of informants that kept the population paranoid and quiet, lest
they be disappeared to any of the prison camps that dotted the
countryside. Leaving was impossible as the borders were reinforced with barbed wire to keep the
population from escaping. By the time Hoxha died in 1985, Albania was isolated from the rest of Europe and frozen in time, with no trading
partners nor allies. North Korea is an apt comparison.
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| Recreation of a food queue line from the communist era. At food distribution points, people would rise early and leave an object to hold their place in line for when the food would be distributed later in the day. |
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| Old surveillance facility. |
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| Mass gymnastics and rallies. |
Other than House of Leaves, we also visited BunkArt 1 and BunkArt 2 which were history museums and art exhibits inside the regime's former bunker complexes. Together, these three museums gave us a comprehensive idea of this traumatic period of history. Frustratingly, the other museums in Tirana that covered other subjects (modern art, ethnography, etc.) were all closed for renovation at the same time.
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| War offices inside the bunkers. |
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| More surveillance equipment. |
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| Here I am on top of one of the hundreds of thousands of mini-bunkers intended for use in case of an invasion during the communist period. We also saw these dotted throughout the countryside. |
In the evenings, we ventured out again to float on the evening crowds. We mostly explored Blokku, where formerly off-limits villas of communist officials had been transformed into large lounge-restaurants. The area had some shades of Brooklyn mixed in on the commercial corridors, where dual level shops sold jewelry, clothing and street food.
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| Blokku. |
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| Radio Bar, our favorite bar we visited. |
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| New skyscrapers arising in Tirana. |
On our final day, blessedly much cooler than the others, we walked all the way around Tirana's reservoir and also did a bike tour that filled in some of the areas we had not seen outside Blokku. One interesting stop was at the famous Pyramid of Tirana, which was initially planned to be a mausoleum for Enver Hoxha but now houses a tech school and art center, a symbol of slowly changing fortunes for Tirana.
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| The main lake in Tirana. |
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| A pretty cool mosaic in Skanderbeg Square. |
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| Hoxha's Mausoleum, now a coding school. |
Berat
Our final stop and only exploration into southern Albania would be to the charming city of Berat. We got there via a tour/transfer from Tirana, which was nice but in retrospect probably unnecessary as it was not that hard to get to, and the attractions were all fairly close together within the city. Still, it was nice to take the drive in an air-conditioned car and the guide did a good job getting us situated once we arrived.
Berat showed us a different side of Albania, showcasing the legacy of hundreds of years of Ottoman rule and what Albania was like in the distant past. Arising from the ancient region of Illyria, Albania maintained a strong sense of independence throughout ancient times until it was eventually absorbed into the Ottoman empire. The Ottomans brought trade and development, but also Islam, of which a little over half of Albania now practices. It was the Ottomans who built hundreds of beautiful white stone houses on the hillsides that are the main draw to Berat today, along with an impressive castle above them.
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| A rare non-selfie of the two of us. One advantage of a guide, I guess. |
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| The view from the castle. |
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| Berat in the evening. |
While we were both enamored by the town, it was not the only reason we ventured there. We also had booked a cooking class at an agritourism that we headed to the next day. Albanian food was an unexpected delight for us, with its veggie-heavy appetizers and tasty soups and we were excited to learn to make some dishes.
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| One of the better Albanian traditional dinners we had: stuffed eggplant and peppers, kebabs, spinach pie and fergëse. |
The class was held at Alpeta Agritourism, a restaurant/winery/cooking school/guesthouse run by one big extended family in a village outside Berat. We learned how to make fergëse, a cheese and pepper dip, and also some pies and veggie fritters. We worked somewhat hard, but also enjoyed some wine and conversation with the hosts, who told us all about the enterprise.
After getting back to our hotel and taking digestion naps, we explored a bit more around the castle as the sun set. The next day, we headed back to Tirana on the not-too-bad bus and bid Albania adieu the next morning.
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| Scenes around the castle of Berat, by Nikita |
Reflections and Projections
Many thanks to our guides, hosts and friendly waiters in Albania for
their time, warmth and for cajoling us into rakia shots at the end of meals.
It was a very welcoming week and a half.
If there was one thing Albania maximized for us, it was difference. The wild juxtapositions I mentioned at the start of this blog make more sense with an understanding of how the country was frozen in time by communism then catapulted into the capitalist global order in a few short years. Everywhere you go there is a presence of the recent past unlike anywhere else in Europe. It is mostly the tourists though who think like this. For the Albanians we met, they are interested in looking to the future and tourism is a way of bringing new ideas and wealth into the country. The identity of the country as a destination is being shaped by both forces, and that debate will continue as visitors continue to come as word of Albania's beauty and hospitality spreads.
As for us, we are getting closer and closer to the halfway point of our trip in mid-August. We are constantly evaluating our relationship to time, fascinated how the days go by slow but the weeks are flying by. With the early eagerness behind us and the deadline of going back to the real world still far away, we are less concerned with maximizing our time and more concerned with staying well-rested. Time to work on personal projects, read, and journal is taking up more of the day, and we both have no problem with that especially when we are processing a country as weird and wonderful as Albania.
Until next time,
Chester
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