We made it through another week, and we are still trying to figure out life as a household of three while Brooklyn is back in the US. There are less dishes and clothe to wash, but it is also a lot quieter. Matt has been incredibly busy at work with school starting next week, while Ryan has been holding down the fort at home. He finished up his driver’s ed class and is starting to prep for the SATs this fall.
Thursday, immediately after work, I headed to the airport. I drove to Memmingen Airport near Ulm so I could catch a cheap Wizz Air flight to Albania. Luckily, my cousin Louis, who lives in Italy, is also a passport stamp chaser, and we have talked for a long time about taking some short trips together to cross off countries we probably would not otherwise visit.
My flight was at 9 PM, and it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I have flown Wizz Air several times, but apparently a Wizz Air flight to Albania during summer break is an experience all its own. Even though it was late at night, the plane was incredibly noisy, with kids crying, laughing, jumping around and parents constantly trying to discipline them. It seemed like every child on the plane was standing up in their seat and jumping around, and the rest of our seats were constantly being bumped. I really wanted to take a picture of the mayhem but chickened out. From now on I will always refer to this as the daycare flight.
Interestingly, when we arrived, Louis, who had flown Wizz Air from Venice, told me he had experienced exactly the same thing on his flight. I guess it is just a thing. By the time we arrived in Tirana, the capital of Albania, it was after 11 PM, so we took a taxi to the hotel, had a quick drink in the lobby and then headed to bed.
Friday was our only full day in Tirana. According to Tripadvisor, there is about a full day’s worth of sightseeing in the city, so we let ourselves sleep in a little before having breakfast at the hotel and taking a taxi downtown. The traffic was absolutely insane. Louis said it reminded him of the traffic in Mumbai, India, which is saying something. It took us about 45 minutes to travel the three miles from our hotel to the city center, and it did not seem like there were many rules of the road. Cars simply filled in wherever there was space, with very little regard for lanes or traffic directions, while motorbikes and pedestrians weaved their way between the cars. It was chaotic, but somehow it all seemed to work.
We started our sightseeing at Skanderbeg Square, the enormous central plaza of Tirana named after Gjergj Kastrioti, better known as Skanderbeg, the 15th century Albanian military leader who is considered a national hero. The square is surrounded by some of the city’s most important landmarks and is dominated by a large statue of Skanderbeg on horseback.
From there, we visited the Et’hem Bej Mosque, one of the most historic mosques in Tirana. Construction began in the late 18th century, and the mosque is particularly notable for its beautifully painted interior and its role as one of the few historic buildings to survive Albania’s communist period.
Religion has an interesting and complicated history in Albania. Under communist leader Enver Hoxha, the country was officially declared an atheist state in 1967, and religious practices were banned. Mosques, churches and other religious buildings were closed, destroyed or repurposed, making Albania the first officially atheist state in the world. Religious freedom returned after the fall of communism, and today Albania is known for its religious diversity and generally relaxed approach to faith. Today, the country is divided three ways among Islam, Orthodox Christianity and people who identify as nonreligious or atheist, although the religious landscape is more diverse than those three categories suggest.
We then checked out the Clock Tower of Tirana, one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks, which dates back to the early 19th century and was interestingly constructed by Italians, complete with an Italian bell at the top. The Italian connection became a recurring theme throughout the day, as Louis seemed to have an explanation for the Italian influence everywhere we went. At one point, he was pointing out things like, “This is an Italian bell,” “This is Italian marble” and “This is an Italian name.” It quickly became a running joke between us. We also noticed Italian tourists everywhere we went, which made us wonder if Albania’s close proximity to Italy, combined with its relatively affordable prices, has made it a particularly popular destination for Italian travelers.
After the Clock Tower, we stopped for a quick coffee at the Opera Café before heading to Bunk’Art 2, a museum housed inside a former Cold War era bunker in the center of Tirana. The museum focuses on Albania’s communist dictatorship, secret police, political persecution and the extensive network of bunkers built throughout the country during Enver Hoxha’s rule. It was actually pretty cool and made for an interesting and sobering look at a period of Albanian history that is still relatively recent. Albania spent decades isolated from much of the outside world under Hoxha, and the bunker itself was a pretty fitting setting for learning about that history. Truthfully, I wasn’t really looking forward to this museum but it ended up being really interesting!
From there, we walked to Tirana Castle, which turned out to be another one of those places that was more about the atmosphere than the actual historic structure. Similar to the historic center of Bucharest, where the old shells of buildings have been transformed into shops, restaurants and bars, Tirana Castle is essentially a historic site that has been incorporated into a modern shopping and dining area.
Not much was open yet when we arrived, and by that point we were hungry, so we headed to Toptani Shopping Center, a huge mall in the middle of Tirana. We climbed floor after floor after floor until we finally found the food court and decided to eat at KFC.
The food itself was nothing particularly special, but the view was amazing and made the fast food stop well worth it. From the restaurant, we could see across the city and had a great view of the Namazgah Mosque, one of Tirana’s newer and most prominent mosques.
After lunch, we walked down toward the mosque, which was sadly about to close for midday prayer. However, we were able to walk around the exterior and enter the outer courtyard, which was beautiful. Then, we continued on to the Tirana Pyramid.
The pyramid was originally built in 1988 as a museum dedicated to Enver Hoxha, although it has since been repurposed and renovated into a cultural and educational space. I forgot to get any pictures of the pyramid itself, but I did get some great views of Tirana from the top.
We continued our walk through the city and saw the Mother Teresa Monument, Mother Teresa Square and the Air Albania Stadium, which also houses the Tirana Marriott Hotel. Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to an Albanian family in what is now North Macedonia, and she remains an important figure of Albanian heritage. On our way back toward the hotel, we passed a huge, immaculate building that turned out to be the Italian Embassy, followed shortly afterward by the American Embassy, which was only slightly larger. The Italian presence in Albania was definitely noticeable, and by this point we had developed an appreciation for just how interconnected the two countries are.
We decided it was time for a drink, especially after walking around in the heat all afternoon. Many places were offering happy hour specials that included spritzes and snacks, so we stopped at two different places for drinks. The snacks were mostly hummus, pretzels and other little bites, which was exactly what we needed after a long day of sightseeing. It had been an incredibly hot day, but the air conditioning at our hotel was working so well that we decided to take an hour long nap before heading to the mall next door.
Malls are apparently big business in Albania. By this point, Toptani had been our second mall of the trip, and both were absolutely packed. They were also surprisingly nice and cosmopolitan, which was not necessarily what I had expected. Maybe everyone was simply looking for a break from the summer heat and some reliable air conditioning, but the stores were definitely busy. We browsed around for a while and then had dinner at a Greek restaurant in the food court. By the end of the day, we had walked more than 25,000 steps, so we were completely exhausted. After one more drink back at the hotel, we went to bed early.
Saturday was our last full day in Albania, and we decided to take a guided tour that we booked through GetYourGuide. The destination was the southern countryside, with stops in the small lakeside town of Belsh and the historic city of Berat. Our first stop in Belsh was quick. We had just enough time to grab a drink in the main square, use the restroom and get back on the bus.
From there, we continued south through the Albanian countryside and past the country’s oil fields. Who knew Albania had oil fields? Albania has a small but longstanding oil industry, with some of its deposits located in the southern part of the country. Oil production dates back more than a century, making Albania one of Europe’s earlier oil producing countries, although its industry is relatively small compared with major producers.
After about two hours of driving, we finally arrived in Berat. Known as the “City of a Thousand Windows,” Berat is one of Albania’s oldest and most picturesque cities and is famous for its Ottoman era houses climbing the hillsides above the Osum River. The historic city is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its remarkably preserved architecture and long history of coexistence among different religious and cultural communities.
Our first stop was Berat Castle, a sprawling hilltop fortress overlooking the city. The castle dates back to antiquity, although much of what can be seen today comes from later periods, and people still live within its historic walls. The climb up to the castle gave us some great views over Berat and the surrounding countryside.
After we did our walk around the castle and checked out the views, we stopped for an extra cold Albanian beer, which was much needed on the hot day it was.
Afterward, we headed down into Berat itself, where we had about two hours of free time. Our first priority was finding lunch, but the city seemed almost completely deserted. It was incredibly hot, and we assumed many people had escaped to the beaches for the summer. We had a surprisingly difficult time finding a restaurant serving lunch, but eventually we found one across the street from a five star hotel.
The restaurant had a large English speaking staff and quite a few English speaking patrons, and we soon learned that NATO had recently opened a small base nearby and that many of the employees lived in Berat. The lunch was actually really good, and we ordered several Albanian specialties so we could try as much as possible. Our entire bill came to less than €30, which felt like an incredible deal compared with what we would have paid for a similar meal in many other European destinations.
After lunch, we walked around the town a little more, had a coffee and did some souvenir shopping before heading back to the bus for the two hour drive to Tirana. Honestly, the day trip was a little boring. We spent a lot of time on the bus and not nearly as much time exploring the places we visited. Still, it was good to get outside the city and see another side of Albania, especially after spending so much time navigating the congestion and chaos of Tirana.
When we arrived back in the capital, we took another nap in our wonderfully air conditioned hotel rooms before heading back to the mall next door for another food court dinner and a little shopping. We had one last drink at the hotel and then went to bed extremely early because we had a very early morning ahead of us.
Our alarms went off at 3 AM on Sunday morning, and we were in a taxi by 4 AM. Both of us had 6 AM flights, so there was no time to waste. I was back at Memmingen Airport by 8 AM and home by 11, where I promptly took another nap after the early wake up call. I spent the rest of the day unpacking and then repacking my suitcases for my upcoming trip to the US.
Overall, I am glad we visited Albania, especially because the whole point of these quick trips is to see places we might not otherwise make the effort to visit. Tirana was chaotic, crowded and incredibly hot, but it was also vibrant and full of energy. I am not sure what I had expected, but with so many immigrants coming to Western Europe from the Balkans, I was not expecting to find such a nice, clean city. Yes, the traffic was crazy and there is no public transportation, but that was really the only major downfall we experienced.
What struck me most was how much Albania feels like a country in transition. Modern shopping malls, trendy cafés and new construction sit alongside Cold War bunkers, Ottoman architecture and remnants of a communist past. The Italian influence was impossible to miss, and the fact that we could eat an enormous lunch for less than €30, find inexpensive drinks and shop at prices that felt surprisingly affordable made it easy to understand why Albania has become increasingly popular with European travelers.
I am not sure Tirana is a city I would need to return to for an extended stay, but I am very glad we got to experience it, and I am especially glad we got another passport stamp out of the trip. Once I was home and had gotten a nap, Matt, Ryan and I ended the weekend with the second movie in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and sushi takeout on the couch, which was exactly what I needed after a weekend of more than 25,000 steps, early mornings, crowded streets and far too much time on buses and airplanes.
Gilcrests Abroad 