adventures in Albania
At the end of April, my friend Lexie and I took a spontaneous little trip to Tirana, the capital city of Albania. Situated between Italy and Greece, it's easy to see the influence of ancient Greece and contemporary Italy on the culture of Albania. If you like Italian food, you will like Albanian food!
Almost everyone we encountered (taxi drivers, baristas & wait staff, currency exchange tellers, etc.) spoke English, which made it easy to navigate and communicate. I looked up a few words in Albanian before going, but I didn't end up needing to attempt the language. I did say thank you (faleminderit) to a barista, and she responded with "you're welcome" in English, so... at least I tried!
We were there for three nights, and stayed a hard-to-locate but very nice & cute AirBnB that was about a 25-minute walk from the city center. Two and a half days was the perfect amount of time to explore Tirana - my friend and I went to a few museums, enjoyed the nice weather in a park, had lots of gelato, and learned a lot about this country's history. I knew nothing about Albania before going on this trip, so I was reading every plaque and description on the museum displays, no matter how google-translated the sentences were.
Albania's economy is still recovering from the effects of the communist dictatorship that took hold after WWII and lasted until the mid 90's. One museum that we went to was Bunk'Art2, which is set up in a labyrinth of communist-era nuclear bunkers. It details the history of Albania's communist decades, and has a few contemporary art displays that are quite evocative as well.
This museum was very sobering, but so educational. Some of the information was hard to read, as it detailed practices of the Sigurimi (communist police) in terms of surveillance, recruiting civilians, and torturing enemies of the regime.
We also visited the National History Museum in the city center, which covered everything from Albania's ancient history to the eventual fall of communism. I could see a lot of similarities to ancient Greek history in the style and subjects of the art/statues on display. Ottoman and Illyrian influence is also very strong.
The museum included a large gallery of Christian/Catholic art, which surprised me considering the most common religion in Albania is Islam. Catholicism isn't uncommon, but according to the numbers it is far behind Islam in popularity. That said, I saw more cathedrals (two) than mosques (zero) during the three days I spent in Tirana. Perhaps other religions are more prominent in other areas! The religious art gallery in the National History Museum featured art with a much more post-Byzantine style than I have previously seen in religious art. The bold red walls of the gallery matched the energy of the saturated color palette of the artwork.
The weather was forecast to rain both of the full days we would be there, but I was so happy that it only ended up raining overnight, and we had two warm, sunny days to enjoy. Lexie and I spent one afternoon relaxing in a park with gelato, which is definitely something I should do more often ;)
It was fun to people-watch in the park - there was nonstop foot and vehicle traffic, resulting in a lot of honking horns and people walking their dogs. I noticed people of all ages out and about at all times of day. Made me wonder what a typical work or school schedule is like, or if unemployment and low enrollment are issues that the Albanian people face...
Pictured in the collage above are two of the cathedrals we saw, the entrance to a shopping/restaurant strip in what used to be a castle, and a monument of friendship between Albania and Kuwait. The capital city has many interesting and colorful buildings amongst historic, older structures. It's quite a sight to see!
The food in Albania was pretty good - very Italian-influenced, as I said earlier, and also very inexpensive. Personally, the thing that was most different for me were the choices for breakfast. The options were mostly sweet pastries or small deli sandwhiches, and I did not see many people actually eating breakfast out at cafés. While I was deciding if I wanted a turkey sandwich or spinach pastry with my cappuccino, most locals were simply enjoying a cortado or espresso shot.
I'll do a food review on my tumblr soon, but want ~reader input~ on which one(s) to do! Vote below, pls:
food review poll
Syri - burgers & fries
Artigiano - risotto & Albanian cornbread
La Bon cafe - coffee and... breakfast?
The Rooms Restaurant - surprising comfort food
You can vote for more than one answer.
And that was our trip! It was a nice chill getaway with a good friend. I would definitely consider going to Albania again, and would aim to go to one of the beaches or another city, like Durrës or Berat. The only reason we didn't plan a beach day on this trip was because we thought it was going to rain the whole time... But sunny afternoons in a park with gelato are still sunny afternoons well spent! Plus, not going out of the city saved money on taxis...
Oh, pro-tip: book taxis through your AirBnB host or ask your host/hotel staff for transit recommendations. 10/10 do not recommend hopping in the first car that offers to take you to your accommodations from the airport.... We were totally safe, thankfully, but learned later that we ended up paying 4x as much as the legit taxi that our host booked for us to return to the airport. Live and learn!
Are there any underrated, off-the-beaten-path destinations on your travel list? Let me know in a comment!
take care of yourself <3
~heather
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