This is the 4th new country for us in the past 2 months and we really like being able to compare countries and their capital cities. Albania was one of the most isolated Eastern Bloc countries during the Soviet era. They really kept a tight locked border that included not allowing tourists as well as not allowing their own citizens to leave. They tried being friends with Yugoslavia, the USSR, and then China but the dictator eventually pushed all of them away and the country became extremely isolated. This caused an very poor country and frankly they are still struggling to create a working economy even though they turned into a democracy in 1992. But that struggle is not the vibe we get, looking at their downtown. Lots of new big buildings, busy streets, and huge squares in what really feels like a new city. It is fun to compare Albania’s capital city of Tirana to Skopje, Macedonia that we visited a couple of weeks ago. Tirana has decided to give their city a modern look instead of Skopje’s mixed bag of “historical” new architecture, and intentionally have modeled their architecture off of the modernism of Dusseldorf, Germany.
The weather has finally turned and we are now in full fledged summer. The 90 degree heat did not make us interested in taking another cable car to the top of the hill. We instead stayed mostly in town, and took walks around town and the parks. We walked all the way around the lake in the park and even saw a fallow deer on one of the park trails. There was a museum in a bunker that explained a lot about the secret police and they oppression during the communist era. Albania seemed a lot more messed up than many of the other former Eastern bloc countries. The National Art Museum and the National History museum were both closed for renovation.
The big event happening in Albania this week was a World Cup Qualifying match between Albania and Serbia. The 2 countries DO NOT LIKE each other. Kosovo, which is filled with ethnic Albanians, has declared independence from Serbia several years ago and Serbia is still not happy about it. The Tirana stadium was sold out but that didn’t mean the rest of the town couldn’t join in the festivities. Serbians were prevented from going to the game so we only saw Albanian fans. From about noon until the 8:45pm gametime, the streets were filled with people wearing red shirts and chanting bad things about Serbia while waving flags and scarves. Cars with flags and people hanging out the windows were cruising around all day honking their horns. It was great to see the patriotism in a country that has had a lot of tough times. We ended up watching the game at a sports bar near our house and had a great time even though the final score was 0-0. The honking started up again after the game and went late into the night.
We are also enjoying seeing the food change quite a bit as we have gone from Romania, to Bulgaria, to Macedonia and now to Albania. There is still a lot of meatballs and sausages but now a lot of the food is getting more Greek and Mediterranean. We did find an “American” steakhouse restaurant called Spaghetti Western. For a while during the communist era, Albanians had a dedicated Italian channel that played a lot of Spaghetti Westerns, so many of the older generation speak fluent italian, and there is a nostalgia for the westerns. I don’t really understand this at all. Meg did have a pretty good Ribeye and I was able to try some “Southern” Fried chicken which was really just deep fried boneless chicken parts.
Albania is very interesting to me and I am eager to learn more about the difficult communist era that they went through. It feels like construction is happening everywhere and there is optimism that they will fully join the EU in a few years. They are still struggling with corruption and lack of infrastructure because they were in isolation for so many years. Traffic is terrible and there aren’t any trains in this part of the world yet. But they have a lot of plans and it feels like they are on the right plan. We have 3 more Albanian cities that we will stay in during the next couple of weeks and I am sure I will understand a bit more after those visits. We liked Tirana and thought our 4 days was just right. We really recommend our Airbnb if you intend to visit someday. Next town is Berat!