Albania – Day 9. December 23, 2017

Greetings from Tirana –

Before I get into today’s journey from Gjirokaster to Tirana (about 3.5 hour drive), I realized I left out some details about yesterday that might be interesting to note and some overall comments.

• There are more petrol stations in Albania per capita than anywhere else in the world (I’m pretty certain of this); there are gas stations everywhere.
• There have got to be more Mercedes and Audis here than anywhere. Nearly every other car on the road, in parking lots, etc. are Mercedes or Audis – and pretty new too. Don’t know the history of this, especially in a developing country, but so it is. I assume it’s a status symbol, but there’s got to be more to it than that, and I cannot imagine how anyone affords them on Albanian salaries, but maybe they cost less than in neighboring countries?
• Tirana is quite polluted.
• Lots of smoking, everywhere, and lung cancer rates are high.
• Restaurant lighting is like very bright stage lighting. No matter how elegant, they seem to like to have restaurants very very well lit!
• Towns are filled with antique stores or stores that sell a potpourri of old, used, random things – probably some valuable and some junk, but it’s all piled together.

So, back to Gjirokaster for a minute –

Yesterday after the castle, we walked back into the center of town and stopped for lunch at a little place on the second floor of a building – up pretty steep and winding stairway. We were NOT the only ones at the restaurant! There was a little party going on in a private room – young people, perhaps university students celebrating something. But we were the only people in the other part of the restaurant, which was quite cute, set up to feel like a little Albanian village cottage – wood burning stove (the only heat in the space) and lace curtains on the wooden windows. The space was about 13’ x 50’ (maybe even longer than that) and the kitchen was at one end. Naturally, they didn’t have many things on the menu, so we opted for those little arancini-ish rice balls with spices (crisp on the outside) and two skewers of shish kebab – lamb and chicken. All find (just a little tired of shish kebab by now. Cook and waiter (I think it was a family affair) very friendly and tried so hard to talk with us.

Then we went to select some herbed olive oils to bring back to the states (and to Geneva) and some raki (little bottles) and some very very natural tea spices still on the branches. And then we went to visit something called Gjiro-Art – a woman’s collective that is producing handicrafts for sale and also recreating traditional costumes. We visited their studio. Not much to purchase as they have recently been to a handicraft fair in Brussels (and I suppose they sold out their wares?) Anyway, the woman who runs the NGO seems to also be in charge of preservation efforts in Gjirokaster. We sort of got the story about the rehabilitation going on in town and the effort to push tourism since that would be a major driver. I think that now that they have the UNESCO status, they think they are well positioned for tourism. She had a lot of information and a somewhat workable knowledge of English, but the conversation was still a bit strained.

Everyone in the outlying areas (non-Tirana) describes Tirana as a city for young people.. bustling with activity. And they are all very proud of their particular communities and towns, which is nice to see. We then had a pre-dinner cocktail in the hotel bar (we are definitely regulars now, and the bartender already knows what we drink – but then again, we are the only ones there). For dinner we went to Ndrico’s a sort of Greek restaurant located in a Greek minority area on the outskirts of Gjirokaster. The place was really large (and very brightly lit), but since we had a reservation (good thing, because there were only about 25 empty tables!) they had saved a table for us in one corner. The waiter was very sweet and he had a small amount of English. He told us that there were two dishes that were not on the menu but were specials – a grilled vegetable platter (eggplant, zucchini, and peppers) sprinkled with balsamic, and baby goat. So we opted for those two as well as some tzatziki. Naturally we had Albanian red wine… and at the end we had a panna cotta sort of dessert. The food was really good. Then we headed back to the hotel to pack (and have an after dinner drink).

This morning when we woke up and got organized to leave the hotel, in the square near our hotel there was a life size “snow globe” with an inflated Santa Claus inside! Pretty tacky but quite fun.

Then we started our drive to Tirana (we’ll be here just tonight, as we fly from here to Geneva tomorrow). We opted for the “fast route” – which was to take 3.5 hours. The more scenic route – which we would have preferred – seemed a lot les predictable. Anyway, the drive was interesting – initially great landscape, snow dusted mountains, clean rivers, and fairly good roads. Later it became very industrial with the usual detritus you find along the roadside of industrial areas. The drive time was increased considerably as we entered various cities and towns. Along the way, we saw scores of men standing around and also men tending to turkeys. They seem to be like shepherds but walking herds of turkeys which eat on the edge of the road. We stopped once so I could “chat” with one of the turkey herders.

Well, of course I couldn’t really chat, but I did photograph him with his turkeys (although he preferred to be photographed without the turkeys). He had a great smile, but every time I reached to photograph him he got very serious. He talked a lot – all in Albanian. I tried to explain where I was from and he seemed excited that I was from “OOOSA!” We also passed many bizarre buildings that seemed to have been “designed” to incorporate overdone flamboyant details and often mushed together many different periods of design history.

After about two hours of driving we decided we were hungry and needed lunch – Saw what looked like a nice restaurant in the middle of nowhere; parked and started to walk in. But turns out the restaurant was closed for a wedding. That left us looking again for a place to eat. I tried to Google restaurants and found what looked like a good place in Lushnje! So we took a little detour and headed to Lushnje … The drive there was interesting and we were convinced it was not possible to have a restaurant on the road we were on…

But alas, we wound up at Flamuri where several tables were taken up by men watching a soccer game on TV. We were a big hit in the restaurant as they searched for someone who could speak English, since the menu had no translation (and no pictures!). Just as we were ready to just point to two items (how bad could it be?) the grill chef arrived to the rescue. Actually, he only had a few words – mostly the names of the meat they had. But he also told us to have salad and cheese (they love cheese), and potatoes. So we had quite a full meal – lamb with what he suggested.

We’ve been relying on WAZE instead of Google Maps and remain in awe that it can find us on little roads everywhere here in Albania. But WAZE always tries to find shortcuts to get you in and out of traffic, so we also found ourselves in totally bizarre private streets and alleyways which made the trip a bit stressful as we approached Tirana. But here we are at the Sheraton in Tirana! – A large hotel that could be anywhere. We picked it for the last night because we thought it would be easy access to the airport tomorrow, and because we could drop off the rental car right here.

We had dinner at a fish restaurant that came highly recommended by the Albanian foodies… Grep I Arte.

Fern