Having visited Elbasan earlier in the day, we arrived in Tirana around 2PM after encountering heavy traffic. Our hotel, Hotel Boutique Kotani, was very central to Skanderbeg Square (another one!), located a few blocks from the national football stadium (Air Albania Stadium). The hotel itself needed some updates – the decor, central air, elevators and rooms needed some updates. The room itself was the smallest we had on the trip and the least modernized. Rather than waiting for our luggage to be delivered, this time we just waited until everyone else went upstairs (about 20 elevator trips using the only elevator in service), we grabbed our luggage ourselves and dropped them off in our room. The staff was very pleasant and in particular we enjoyed the local selection of beer at the bar in the lobby.
After a little bit of time to freshen up, we met the Gate 1 group again in the lobby for the afternoon tour of Tirana, with visits to Skanderbeg Square, the National Historic Museum, and Bunk’Art 2 (a funky, bunker museum). The capital city since 1920, Tirana is a relatively new city, situated on the site of a Byzantine fortress. Vegetation was integrated into it very nicely, with the greenery and the tall buildings providing a cooling effect countering the hot concrete.
We set out walking about 15 minutes to Skanderbeg Square on Bulevardi Dëshmorët. Everyone was happy with taking their time, enjoying the modern architecture of Tirana and also the many picture stops. Nida narrated a few sites as we went.
We also started noticing that crowds of people were congregating in football gear, and puzzled it out that there was a home football match today (Sep 10, 2023), and we were in the right area for it. Turned out it was a Euro 2024 qualifying match vs Poland. Albania won! As a result there was a huge police presence and lots of fire crackers mixed in with the celebrations, putting us on edge just a tad.
Right in front of Skanderbeg Square was the Mosque of Et’hem Bey and the Clock Tower, some of the oldest buildings left in the city (1822). Tirana has a history of earthquakes (some even causing tsunamis on Albania’s coastline), the most recent was a 6.4 in 2019.
Tirana is quite old, and has been continuously inhabited since the Iron Age (we would see artifacts in the National History Museum). Again, the similar regional history played out – Albania’s more similar to North Macedonia’s given the shared Illyrian origin – then Roman, then Byzantine when the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 4th century. There’s a nearby Byzantine castle that’s an attraction, but we didn’t have time to see it. After Byzantine times, the Ottomans rolled in and founded the city officially in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini. Tirana continued as Albania’s capital after the Albanian Declaration of Independence in 1912. Following that, in 1928, Zog of Albania was crowned King Zog I, King of the Albanians. This brief period of independence ended with Mussolini capturing Tirana in 1939, eventually leading to Hoxha emerging and Communism taking hold. We passed a pyramid museum along the boulevard that was built in honor of Hoxha, but Nida told us now it is a technical school. Mother Teresa also shows up a lot in Albanian history, as they are one of the regional Balkan countries to “claim her”. She did finally visit in the 80s and 90s once state atheism ended.
Skanderbeg, as we previously learned, was a national hero who was the father of the Ottoman resistance movement, and there are many historical areas, monuments, squares, and museums erected in his honor. Skanderbeg Square in Tirana was no different. The towering statue of G.K. Skanderbeg guards the square. Nida makes an appearance in front of tents that look exactly like Denver International Airport’s snowy peak architecture!
Walking around the square, there were interesting pieces of history and art on every corner, including the opera, and the National History Museum. The National Historic Museum is adorned with a gigantic mosaic mural known as ‘The Albanians’, which supposedly depicts individuals throughout history who fought and resisted against invaders.
We got to visit the museum and a docent took us through. What sticks out the most was the heat and lack of AC. The museum included the Pavilion of Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Independence, Iconography, National Liberation Antifascist War, Communist Terror, and Mother Teresa. As of now (2024), the museum is closed for renovations until 2028. There was a lot of similar to regional artifacts that we had seen before, so other than the independence movement and learning about Hoxha, this museum had little to offer us – however we were glad we got to see it before it went on hiatus.
After the museum, we crossed the square once more for a second museum visit.
That second museum was the funky Bunk’Art 2, an ex-nuclear bunker that was conversed to a museum featuring photographs and equipment that illustrate the political persecution of some 100,000 Albanians from 1945 until 1991. While novel, it was a little repetitive and claustrophobic, but did explain the country’s general paranoia vibe (lots of foreign entities conquering the territory over the years) that was put on steroids when Hoxha came into power.
Finishing BunkArt, we headed back to the hotel, and found ourselves in the midst of the football celebrations and general chaos, with a heavy police force deployed in case of emergency. We decided to go back the long way to avoid the crowded boulevard and the post-game celebration, and got to see some other streets adjacent to our hotel.
Solidarity with Ukraine could also be found within Tirana, as evidenced by the street near our hotel (translated to Free Ukraine Street).
After freshening up back at the hotel, we all walked to a very nice Italian restaurant very close to the hotel called Artigiano. It was family style and delicious, with plenty of pasta and meatballs to go around. We also enjoyed the ice cream (Albania so far was really hot in September).
The next morning we set out to Kruje in the mountains, the home of Skanderbeg, which I will write about in a standalone blog.
We spent our last afternoon and evening in Tirana, in Albania, and on this wonderful part-our-own-part-Gate 1 adventure. Similar a lot of free time spent during this trip, we simply walked around the city, visiting new areas, enjoying the street art, and checking out at least one grocery store.
One of the areas we enjoyed the most was an outdoor area with artisans and restaurants, built near the crumbling wall of the destroyed Tirana Castle (Fortress of Justinian). It’s literally called Tirana Castle, and has the vibe of a hipster, upscale bazaar. Of course we liked it.
Since we hadn’t previously bought the Bulgarian Communist orange chocolate pralines, we went looking for them in the grocery stores. Unfortunately they were not sold in Albania (we had thought they may be regional), but nonetheless we enjoyed seeing the local products and local candies. Grocery stores are a great way to see a slice of culture.
At the end of the day, our opinion of Tirana was that it was a modern, livable city, and major hub for the region, but probably too hot (temperature wise) for relocation given climate change. Sofia, Bulgaria took the cake for us from a livability perspective, Skopje from a charm perspective, and Brasov from a look and feel perspective (it was in the mountains and felt like Colorado).
The trip had come to an end and we had our final farewell dinner with Dragan and Nida at The Bear’s Table, in Tirana Park. Tirana Park was a large green space near the edge of the city (we took the bus), higher in elevations and with vistas all around. It was neat to be able to keep exploring Tirana’s nooks and crannies. We all arrived early enough to enjoy the grounds and take some farewell pictures in the Rose Garden.
Dinner was a highlight, with a lot of traditional and modern favorites to try. Everyone was in a good mood since the trip was a success. We even got to try a traditional dessert which was called Shendetlie, a honey and walnut cake. It was delicious and a perfect treat to end a perfect trip.
Gate 1 always does a great job and Nida our tour organizer and Dragan our driver took everything to the next level.
Back at the hotel we prepared our luggage for clear out – our flight was at 630AM to Denver via Frankfurt from Tirana Airport. We left around 330AM and Brendan felt like he might be coming down with Covid so we masked up and tried not to hug the other Gate 1 travelers in our airport transport group while saying goodbye (several other people on the tour came down with Covid, and it started going around towards the end). The trip to the airport luckily only took about 45 minutes (we had budgeted up to 2 hours due to the traffic we had experienced heading to Kruje the day before). From there, all of our flights were on time and we got back in the early afternoon to Denver, and to our cats who we dearly missed.
