Albania

Monday May 28, Tuesday May 29, Wednesday May 30

Monday morning, we left Montenegro and drove to the border of Albania in a private mini-bus. It was a straightforward crossing – no hold ups, and pleasant customs officials.

Still in Montenegro, we passed the town of Budva. It is the centre of Montenegrin tourism and is known for its Medieval walled city, sandy beaches, and nightlife! About 6 k further on, we had a photo stop for Sveti Stefan, a pretty little island Aman resort joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus.

The Balkans are very pretty with their Adriatic coastline, history, and old buildings, and just don’t stop filling your eyes with surprises. Soon we were into Albania and off the main highway onto narrow, windy roads, with crazy Albanian drivers, squeezing past big tour buses, and trying to avoid the potholes. The character of the landscape changed, and we entered a farming community with market gardens, hay fields, farm houses, sheep, fat shiny cows, and a few goats. Despite the fact Peter told us we might see some horse drawn carriages, we didn’t, and in fact I have only caught quick glimpses of two horses so far in Albania. 

The Albanian language is considered one of the oldest in Europe and quite difficult to learn. The Albanian countryside is known for its mushroom-shaped “bunkers” which were built during the Communist period in Albania by paranoid leaders. Today Albanian resourcefulness is turning these bunkers into museums, restaurants, bars, and cafes.

We continued our drive to the Rozafa Castle, near Shkoder. The goal was to climb up to the castle and eat a picnic lunch. The castle is built on a rocky hill about 130 metres high. More hill training. It was originally an Illyrian stronghold, taken over by the Romans in 167 BC, however, the ruins preserved today are mainly Venetian, pre the Ottoman Empire. I love being surrounded by the characters  of prior times and their stories and their buildings restored to period. It gives a real sense of existence and almost a peace with the land.

On the way up, I met a bunch of school girls coming down. I was practically mobbed by them, in the nicest of ways!! They saw it as an opportunity to “speak” English and practised by asking me my name, where I was from, and even my age in some cases. After handshakes, hi-fives, and much laughter and attempts to communicate, we finished our climb, ate our picnic, took our pictures and came back down to the coach to drive to Tirana, the capital of Albania. The interesting thing was that for the rest of our time up there, a small group of kids would periodically call out “Elizabeth, hello!!” I guess they weren’t going down, but maybe up when I met them, and certainly remembered who I was!!! It was  rather nice!! And it was fun to mix among them and see their excitement at meeting “foreigners”.

We arrived in Tirana, checked into our room, and Peter took us out for our introductory walk around town. I love the way he does this. It quick starts the visit. Tirana is a large city, and the downtown is quite modern, and colourful as you will see from some of the photos. We ended up at the SkyTower revolving restaurant for a drink before heading back to the hotel for a clean up and meeting at 7:00 p.m. for dinner. We followed Peter once again to a restaurant in the “party” area; had an “interesting” dinner – an Albanian “fergese”. Loads of cheese, melted, with chunks of veal, and served in a bowl. Really tasty, but exceedingly rich!!! I think I ate about an 1/8^th !!!

Tuesday morning we were up at 7:00 a.m. for an 8:30 a.m. departure to the mountain town of Kruja. We had a drive back through the city of Tirana with its “crazy Albanian drivers”, and a pretty route through the countryside of Albania with its small farm holdings, cows, sheep, and goats, and crops. A small narrow road of S bends took us up the mountain to the castle at the top of the hill, then a few hundred metres of walking over the shiny, colourful, stone tiles and into the castle grounds. Our understanding is that if people lived in the castle grounds, it is called a “castle”, and if no one lived in the grounds, it is called a “fortress”.  One of the buildings was set up as a history museum and we learned about the rulers of Albania and most importantly “Skanderbeg.” We had a guide who took us through all the rooms of the castle and explained the customs about living, and brides and grooms. Then we had a couple of hours to explore the bazaar and the small town, and have lunch, before driving back to Tirana.

On our city walk yesterday we passed the secret police museum, and on our arrival back in the big city Ray and I hurried off to The House of Leaves, basically a secret police centre during communism.  There were two floors of information, documents, and artifacts, describing the set up, of this Communist department which lasted from about 1945 to 1991. It was a dark time in Albanian history. The information and explanations were very interesting, but the personal stories of the people is what hits the heart. Through state videos and films, and audio interviews after Communism came apart, we learned how the tentacles of surveillance infiltrated the soul of the residents, the tattling by friends, neighbours and family members, and the torture of innocent people just trying to live their lives…firsthand; it was heartbreaking. The final experience was walking down into the dungeons through the entrance in the garden. It was a dark, wet, and muddy place which conjured up images of the innocent who were forced to be in there. What a terrible time. What a terribly cruel philosophy this form of communism was. The Albanians say it was the worst expression of communism. Marxism. I can’t help but relate what we saw and heard to the stories that come out of North Korea today. It is the same. The regime is paranoid, everyone, every other nation in the world, is against them, and the regime forms an organisation that intrudes into every part of a man’s living, including the “soul”…the heart. You can’t love anything except the “Great Leader” (in Korea), and the “State” (in Albania) and any indication that you do is punished. It was truly a very thought provoking exhibition, and makes you realise that everything you read in “Escape from Camp 14” is absolutely true.

What has filled my mind since seeing the exhibition is the “transition” to its present form of democracy. The work that must be done to take its people from a Communist way of thinking and acting to a democratic way of thinking and acting. It struck me that the parents of today’s children were brought up in a society where love was not expressed about anyone other than the Party leader/State. How are today’s parents coping with parenthood? The total devotion to communism isolated the country, and this shows up in many ways in the culture as well as in the physical look of the people. There has been no outside influence on the race for a great number of years, and this has continued because the country is poor, and what immigrants want to go to a poor country???

This evening, we decided to eat dinner outside in the garden in our hotel. The atmosphere was great, but the food, apparently an “Albanian” dish, was not really to our liking. I think it was something like liver, kidneys, and another organ baked with mushed potatoes and cheese. Very bland, extremely rich, and wasn’t really my taste!!

On Wednesday morning we left at 8:30a.m.  for the bus station – to take the public bus to Berat. The station was very sane, not at all like trying to get a bus in Ghana, for example!!! We arrived in the small city and changed on to a city bus to take us to the old part and our hotel. There were two young girls travelling to school sitting opposite us and Ray gave them each a Canadian pin! After checking with their Grandfathers they could accept the “gift” they were thrilled. Smiles shone over their faces like the brilliant sun. We showed them how to put them on, told them they were from Canada, and watched the joy our very small gesture had created. At the least we have been good ambassadors for Canada, at the most, who knows one day they may visit Canada!! And in the meantime, I hope they think kindly of Canadians.

We soon arrived in the old part of town, and then slowly made our way up the cobbled hill to the hotel. The hotel Osumi is beautiful as are all the buildings around us, stone walls, lots of wood, beautiful flowers. Full of Albanian character. Peter took us on the introductory walk around town, across the Osum River and gave us a birds’ eye view of the city churches/mosques. Albania is a Moslem country, but it is a relaxed form of Moslemism much like we experienced in West Africa.  We walked down the deserted pedestrian mall, and then found a restaurant for a quick lunch. We had an amazing chicken Caesar crepe! Then it was back to the hotel to meet our guide who was talking us up to the castle.

We reached the Berat Castle by a short walk up the cobbled narrow streets, and the guide showed us over. The castle was mainly built in the 1300s, and contained a number of churches, little ones, with the four levels of painting on walls showing the saints, and stories about the life of Jesus.

It was late afternoon when we wandered back to the hotel we cleaned up and changed after the heat of the day, and around 8 pm walked back down to the pedestrian promenade to experience the “giro”. Peter had mentioned that although deserted during the day, this mall comes alive in the evening! He was right!! It was electric!! Stacked with people, out walking; all cleaned up and smelling sweet. There were men, women, children, even the priests came out!! We noticed the predominance of young men between the ages of say 18 – 30; their similarity in dress and features; and they way they occupied the tables nearest the walk way, and faced the walk way as if in a theatre!! The women were on in the inside row, hugging the walls of the restaurants. In the section behind Ray in the restaurant in which we ate dinner, I counted 30 young men, wearing the standard t-shirt in colours of mainly black and red, but also white  and pink, and blue jeans, with brightly coloured sneakers. The music was loud, often, surprisingly, American/English songs!! The fans that during the day had gently sprayed cooling water over the crowds, now stood silent. Smoking is very prevalent in all of these countries, even England. More so than in Canada we think. In fact Masooma seconded this when she mentioned the amount of smokers in England and Switzerland. The smoking laws are in place, but, here anyway, there is no laws against advertising, no restrictions on securing the cigarette packets in the stores, and they are plentiful and easily available.

We ate dinner by the side of the promenade; the crowds calmed; the people disappeared; and by the time we walked back to the hotel the promenade was very quiet again. There were still some groups left in the restaurants, but the larger crowd had disappeared into their houses to watch TV….or some other evening activity.