Greetings from Central Albania – Berat

I’m sitting in our room at the moment relaxing after a very very hectic and physical day… and listening to the call for prayer at the local mosque, which is practically outside our door. When you research Albania you learn that the population is 65% Muslim (although a very secular kind of Muslim since there is no evidence in dress). But we learned from various people we’ve been meeting with that data is very very inaccurate and that the majority of the population is actually atheist.

Since we are the only guests at Residenza Desaret (Berat), we were naturally the only people at breakfast (which was on par with the dinner last night).. We had corn flakes and bananas and eggs (bland)… and then off we went – First to find a map of Berat (always good to get an overview of the town. But no luck.. then we started to climb a narrow cobblestone street that we thought led up to the castle.. but alas after asking a few people (no English spoken in Berat), we found out we were climbing the wrong street so we about faced and went up the adjacent street.. up and up and up… all cobblestone – much of it worn over the centuries, but in pretty good shape. We climbed about 650 feet (65 story building) to get to the top.. sort of grueling but not as bad as climbing to the top of the Portola Palace in Tibet (but that was at 12,000 ft. above sea level).

We carefully traced the GPS route and found ourselves on narrower and narrower cobblestone pathways of stone stairs  heading up hill and making hairpin turns. Eventually after climbing about 40 feet in a rather circuitous manner we found ourselves at Lili’s – which is really Lili’s house (Illia is his real name). His family has lived on the same property for more than 250 years and he did work in computers up until a few years ago. Now he’s a restauranteur. He added a tiny space to the back of his house (sort of an open-air shed about 10’ x 10’ with three tables). In summer he has enough room just outside of this space for 2 more tables. He’s fashioned this tiny space with handmade (by him) tables all made out of recycled materials that he foraged – some of which is hundreds of years old wood, including the shed which is precariously cobbled together. His wife cooks in the kitchen in the house which is some 10 or 15 steps down from this area.. He is the congenial, talkative host.. and she cooks.. And his father makes the wine and the raki.

Naturally we were the only patrons, so Lili spent a lot of time talking to us – politics (he likes this government), food, and his business. We ordered three dishes (definitely one too many) – something he called dolma but was like a stuffed tomato with rice and herbs and surrounded by more rice – it was incredibly good; little aubergines stuffed with tomatoes and herbs; and a dish whose name I didn’t catch – which was ricotta cheese and a little bit of goat cheese mixed with tomatoes, herbs, garlic, and egg. All very very tasty. Naturally we also had his father’s wine.. followed by raki at the end of the meal.

We hiked down hill on the cobblestone steps (maybe we rolled down, we were so stuffed) and walked to cross the pedestrian bridge to the other side of town and then walked to the second pedestrian bridge (a more modern suspension bridge) to get back to the hotel.. According to the fitness app on the iPhone, we walked 5 miles (and of course the big climb)… Not aching yet, but we’ll see how we feel tomorrow.

The town’s main attraction is the old town – which includes hundreds of houses built into the hillside all painted white and all with vertical windows… It’s a wonderful site to behold on either side of the Osumo River. We are actually staying in that part of town.

We’re heading to dinner in a bit…  So I’ll give foodie details on that in tomorrow’s missive. We’re going to what is supposed to be the best restaurant in Berat.. We shall see.

All the best

Fern

PS – Turns out it was probably a good thing that the hotel didn’t have our reservation. I found the paperwork last night, and the price quoted when we made the reservation is twice what they told us last night when we came to check in…

Greetings from cold (but sunny) Berat – and onward to Gjyrokaster

It was 30 degrees last night when we walked downhill from Hotel Desaret to the Mangelimi restaurant on the main street. Once again we were the only patrons of the restaurant – one of the “upscale” (by Berat standards) eating places in town. The waiter even had white gloves!

They had an extensive menu and didn’t note that anything that was listed could not be prepared, which was very surprising. We were actually still a bit full from the huge lunch that Lili’s wife prepared. But we figured — “you gotta eat!” We tried to ask for small portions but that didn’t go too far. So we started with the Albanian version of tzatziki (yogurt, cucumbers, spices) which was good, but with far fewer cucumbers than we are accustomed to.. It was served with great bread (bread is really quite wonderful throughout Albania, so it is difficult to turn it down and to think about any sort of diet here). We then had two main courses which we shared (naturally!) – a veal shish kebab that came as two separate large skewers with fairly large pieces of veal and red peppers; the plate included a good salad with thick juicy slices of tomato; and we had a wonderful eggplant dish that was baked in a casserole. We had a half-liter for red wine (local – which means a blend of many different grapes – but thus far all of these local wines have been very very good) and he tempted us with a simple ice cream dessert. – Total bill: equivalent of $17.00… So once again, Albania is looking like a possible retirement destination! – if and when either of us ever move to that step in our lives.

We head to Gjyrokaster in a few hours and I’ll finish up this note from there tonight – after we celebrate Mike’s birthday at a restaurant recommended by the foodie folks in Tirana (so I’m assuming it will be quite good). They also recommended a second restaurant for our final day in Gjyrokaster.

By the way, for those who were sweet enough to ask about the baby (Mike’s grand-nephew?) – he looks quite adorable and we are anxious to meet him when we get to Geneva.

So, we left Berat at about 10:30 this morning.. after breakfast at Desaret – they did not disappoint; yet again a terrible breakfast, despite the fact that we are the only guests, or perhaps because we are the only guests. They had granola which was fine, but then they brought out crepes – stuffed with what appeared to be an entire jar of Nutella and because I think they thought they were making it special they included a few slides of banana (fine!) and also corn flakes!! And on top of the crepes they poured chocolate syrup. Always embarrassing to leave food on the plate – especially when traveling. So we tried to eat some of it.

Anyway, we left and headed toward Gjyrokaster. It was pretty cold and no sun, so I guess it felt even colder than the 38 degrees. The first half of the drive was on pretty miserable roads with minimal directions, lots of pot holes, and such… but we managed to make pretty good time, especially once we hit the brand new road which went for the remainder of the drive until we got to Gjyrokaster’s environs. The drive was interesting as we went through many small villages and roadside developments — all along the way we saw men “hanging out” on the roadside .. very much what you see in other Muslim countries. Men smoking, having strong coffee, and talking – sometimes in cafes, sometimes on street corners, and in rural areas, on the road. Women always seem to be bustling and working — walking in and out of shops, waiting for buses, etc. The landscape was truly beautiful – lush, green, and with snow capped mountains in the distance.

As we approached Gjyrokaster, we needed to rely heavily on GPS – taking us up limestone cobble streets where there was barely enough room for a single lane of cars, but it was two-way and we always seemed to be going in the direction against the rest of the traffic, so we needed to find places where we could step aside to let those cars come down the hill as we went up. This was a slow and tedious process and for a while we thought we were on a one way street in the wrong direction. Alas, we eventually made it to Hotel Argjiro – a recently renovated hotel, originally built in the 1850s. It has 49 rooms and – you guessed it – only one room is occupied – by us!!

We were greeted by a sweet young man whose English was amazingly good. We dropped everything in our room (best in the hotel!) and then headed up those same cobblestone streets for lunch at the top of the hill, next to the city’s large mosque.

Lunch was great and the place was set up like you are eating in a grocery store with shelves lined with jars of preserved and picked peppers and olives and wine. We had three “traditional Gjirokaster” dishes (a marinated eggplant salad, veal skewers, and a sort of arancini accompanied by wine and sparkling water – food was quite good. Total cost $14.00. From there we roamed the town (which is only partially open given the weather and lack of tourists). Stopped in at a very cute store that sells only products from the region – olive oils, vinegars, jams, etc. Trying to figure out how and if we might bring a few things home. Returned to the hotel, rested a bit, did some work (yup, real life must go on). And then we headed out to dinner. I had arranged a dinner place for tonight (Mike’s birthday), using the newly developed and emerging group of friends here in Albania. So we were to go to Kodra (located in the hotel Kodra).  We asked for directions at the front desk (which is operating totally for us). Seemed pretty simple – about a block and a half – we can handle this.

About 15 or 20 minutes into our walk, we realized we were very lost and stopped in a little bar (naturally all men drinking and talking). Very few people speak English except for hotel management once you leave Tirana, so communication is a bit of a struggle – but very interesting as we all use bits and pieces of every language we each know and sign language is always useful (reminds me of traveling in the Soviet Union many decades ago, when Mike and I drew pictures to show what we wanted for dinner).  We kept repeating Kodra (K-Oh-Dr-A).. and then one of the men appeared to know where we were headed. His new directions seemed really strange since it put us back on the path we had walked to get to where we were. Well, turned out the restaurant was about a five minute walk from the hotel, and we had already been walking about 20 minutes. Anyway, made it to Kodra for Mike’s birthday dinner.

Kodra was a very informal restaurant inside (with a large outdoor patio that is probably wonderful in the summer). Food was good, not great (but probably good for winter in Gjirokaster. We were the only foreigners (naturally) but there were two or three tables of people – once again men – drinking, smoking, and chatting. Seems like rural Albania is a great place for older men — lots of socializing, hanging out, and “deep discussions?” .. For women, not so sure.. There seemed to be many things on the menu that looked quite interesting, but they were out of a lot of them (I think they pare the menus down in the winter (good thinking), but don’t change the menus. So you get a pretty comprehensive list of options, but they really only have a few of them at this moment in time.

What did we eat?  We had spankat (sort of a savory pie with spinach – not flaky like spanakopita – but I think definitely in that family), pasta arabiata (which was ok but not as spicy as what we consider to be arabiata sauce), and pork kebabs which were quite tasty (they use a lot of interesting spices), and Albanian wine (which we are now quite fond of)… and the waiter brought out a dessert – oranges with a very nice sweet cheese with pomegranate (they are very big cheese eaters and every menu has lots of cheese options).

The walk back to the hotel was a breeze since we now really knew the route well…  it was also under the twinkle lights that spread across the main street and up the entire two block walk… Made it a bit magical.

All the best — Fern..

More on Gjirokaster tomorrow.

Greetings from Gjirokaster

Following breakfast (which just isn’t their thing! – lots of breads and many random items), we headed uphill for the equivalent of about 35 flights on cobblestone pathways (that are probably hundreds of years old) at about 10-15% slope – to get to the castle. It was built over hundreds of years under numerous despots and dictators, but now is home to reminders of Albania’s resistance to Western occupation. The castle was originally built in the 12^th Century, but has undergone many additions, changes, and renovations, and uses including a prison. It sits atop a hill and the structure can be seen from nearly everywhere in the town. It includes an arms museum, WWII tanks, and an American fighter plane that was shot down during the war. But amid all of this is also a wonderful grass field at the top of the castle roof that is a concert pavilion which must be a spectacular location for music and performances – a total contrast to these military remains. And all of that aside, the structure, the masonry arches, the streaming light pouring in, and the scale of it all is pretty amazing.

So what we know about Gjirokaster is that the city includes the old town (where we are staying), the fortress (which we gather was the original settlement of the area), the Ottoman districts which are basically on the ridges leading away from the fortress, and the newer parts of the city which are in the valley (mostly newer buildings and also the university).  The city has apparently always been patriotic and has a long history of being at the forefront of efforts to promote Albanian identity in the 19^th Century. The city fell under Italian occupation in 1939 (after Albania was invaded), but it was a center of resistance to both the Italian and eventually the German occupation. Beginning in 1944 after it was liberated by the partisans, it was used as a center for liberation of the whole country. Interestingly it is where the dictator Hoxha is from (his house is now the Ethnographic Museum).

He is not revered in any way, but the city was spared in some ways under his regime as he appears to have protected it and thus the town was preserved. Indeed, a giant statue of Hoxha located in the center of the city was torn down immediately following his death. But Gjyrokaster’s economy failed after the end of Communism with the termination of many unneeded industrial jobs. Many people migrated to Tirana. The city went through some bad times, with three sequential fires in the bazaar area and some kind of pyramid scheme that forced historic buildings to move into decay and collapse. There was no funding to conserve Gjyrokaster’s many historic buildings.

But things seem to be looking up – the city is a UNESCO Heritage Site, there is a lot of renovation and preservation work going on in the old section (Indeed, all around us is scaffolding and workers using the non-tourist months to doe extensive preservation work.). From what we can discern, they are banking on tourism as the future of the city.   After the castle, we walked further to see the Duvany neighborhood adjacent to the fortress to get a good glimpse of everyday life. Checked out one of the grocery stores which confirmed what we’ve seen — the variety of produce available is pretty limited (and definitely affecting the availability of some dishes in restaurants) — potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, oranges (I assume from Greece?), apples, onions, and peppers (red and green)… that’s about it. Meat and cheese seem readily available.   We walked to the Ethnographic Museum and the famous Skenduli House (Ottoman) – but both were closed —- the downside of traveling in really really off-season weeks and months.  

So we strolled the main streets and wandered into a very sweet little shop that sells beautiful olive oils, leaves for teas, jams, and raki – all made locally. We bought a bunch of things, and now the challenge will be how to pack them in our suitcases and hope they survive the remaining six flights we need to take over the coming 10 days… (Tirana to Frankfurt; Frankfurt to Geneva – Dec 24… Geneva to Bordeaux – December 28…. Bordeaux to Paris — January 1… Paris to Chicago; Chicago to SFO — January 2)   An observation, I haven’t mentioned: American music is everywhere and the range is huge. The other morning in Berat, the hotel was playing Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows.”  Tonight’s dinner is at a restaurant called Ndrico’s in a Greek minority village a few miles from Gjyrokaster – Dervican.  Signing off now – Will describe dinner in tomorrow’s post. (Tomorrow we drive from here back to Tirana – return the car and repack to head to Geneva on Christmas Eve.)

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