My We’re Home post from Tirana was a bit of a downer. We really didn’t love the city and it had quite a few challenges. I’m sorry to say that the second half of our time there did not get much better, though I think we coped better. We certainly explored more than our first two weeks, which is typical for us. Here are some of the things we did.
Krujë Daytrip
Our shared fifth Christmas gift combined the categories of Albania, history, and daytrip, and Kruje was an obvious choice. It is about an hour by bus from Tirana, though first you have to reach the bus station. And since there isn’t a main bus station in Tirana, first you have to figure out which bus station to go from. We managed that pretty easily with Google maps, finding that it was the station called South and North Bus Terminal. The direct bus to Kruje leaves every hour on the hour so I decided it would be safer to get there by taxi. I used an app called Patoko to book the taxi in the morning, feeling like we had plenty of time.
Unfortunately, this was not as smooth as I’d hoped. It took the driver 10 minutes to pick us up and then, despite my entering the address into the app, there was confusion about where we wanted to go. Once that was sorted, we got caught in traffic, so missed the 8 a.m. bus by about 10 minutes. However, we found a bus to Fushë Krujë, the town halfway there, that must have been scheduled for 8:15 because it left right after we got on it. We were thinking it was the bus to Kruje departing late, so when it stopped at Fushë Krujë, the driver pointed us to another bus that he said would go the rest of the way to Kruje. This seemed to be a collectivo model and we got two of the last seats in the very back. Once a couple more people boarded, we were on our way to Kruje. We ended up arriving around 9:15, not too much later than I originally intended.
When we arrived, we thought we might start by hiking up the mountain to a viewpoint I’d read about, but it looked much steeper in person and the town itself was also full of hills. So we decided to skip the hike and keep the focus on the history. Because we’d gotten such an early start to leave Tirana, we stopped at a cafe and got a cappuccino for Chad and a couple of vegetarian sandwiches to keep our strength up until lunchtime. Our thought had been to sightsee all morning then cap it with a nice lunch in Kruje and head back to Tirana by mid-afternoon.
The Kruje sights were really interesting. There are really just a few main things to see: the old bazaar, which is just some narrow streets lined with souvenir stands, similar to the one in Skopje; the fortress, which dates back to the 5th or 6th century; and the Skanderbeg Museum, which is all about life and times of Albania’s national hero from the 15th century, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg. There is also an ethnographic museum, but we’ve already been to a few of those on this leg so we decided to skip it.
We walked up to the fortress first and explored around that area. It was very picturesque and had great views. Then we spent about an hour looking through the museum (500 lek or around $6 for entry). Skanderbeg really was an interesting and impressive person. His Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skanderbeg page also tells his history well, but the museum did a great job bringing it to life. The highlight for us was the area screening a 1950s Russian film called The Great Warrior Skanderbeg, which has English subtitles. It’s available on Youtube and we’re tempted to watch it sometime, though we haven’t yet.
After the museum we explored the area near the fortress more, including a 500-year-old olive tree supposedly linked to Skandeberg and a little mosque. On our way back through town, we walked through the Old Bazaar area, which was cute but very touristy. It was after noon but we weren’t hungry for lunch due to the veggie sandwiches. So we decided to just take the bus back to Tirana. We elected to wait for the direct bus at 1 p.m. Cash only for all the busses but they were very inexpensive (I think 120 lek per person each way) and the driver gave change as needed.
We were able to get home by taking a direct city bus back to our neighborhood, which actually worked very well. That was our first experience with the Tirana public transportation and we learned that all the city buses have a second employee on the bus in addition to the driver who just walks along and collects the money. All rides are 40 lek each, cash only again.
As daytrips go, Kruje wasn’t amazing but it was an interesting journey and we really enjoyed learning more about Skanderbeg. He is truly the hero of Albania and beloved there.
Bunk’Art
If there’s a must-do attraction in Tirana, it is probably Bunk’Art, a museum and installation inside a Communist era bunker. The dictator Enver Hoxha was very paranoid about being attacked by the USSR, especially a chemical attack, and had 173,000 bunkers built all over the country. They refer to it now as bunkerization. It was very expensive both in terms of cost and loss of life for the workers, during a time when Albania was not doing well economically.
Bunk’Art has a second location in a bunker in the city center of Tirana, but we chose to go to the much larger original version, which required taking two buses but was not too difficult to reach. And it was well worth it. You reach the Bunk’Art entrance through a long tunnel that really sets the mood. Tickets are 900 lek each ($11) and we were able to pay by credit card.
The bunker is one of the largest developed during bunkerization and was meant to be the hub of operations so had quarters for Enver Hoxha and his deputies. At over 3000 square meters, it has 5 stories and over 100 rooms. It really would have been an underground city if they’d ever used it, which they never did (because the USSR did not actually care about Albania and never tried to attack it). In addition to showcasing the bunker itself, Bunk’Art provided a really interesting window into Albania during the communist period. It was pretty bleak. But the whole experience was incredibly interesting and eye-opening.
Architecture and Street Art Tour
During the last week of our stay, we decided to take a second tour with the company that we did the tip-based walking tour with during the first half of our stay. The guide had mentioned that he also did the 4 p.m. architecture tour and we’d made a mental note since we do enjoy architecture. We were a little concerned that a second tour with the same guide would have a lot of redundancies, but our excellent young tour guide, Kedric, delivered almost all new information for us. It was very interesting, especially learning about the recently built skyscrapers that are part of a competition that will end in 2030, the year Albania hopes to be allowed to enter the EU.
Most of the details escape me now, but here are the photos of the various skyscrapers and street art, including whimsical street signs. Our favorite building was the one built to look like the head of Skanderbeg. Kedric said when it is finished, the architects intend to plant vines on the lower floors to look like his beard. We hope to see photos when that happens.
On the tour, we learned about the Kadare & Agolli House Museum dedicated to two prominent Albanian writers. We decided to visit it on our last night out in Tirana a few days before we left. The exhibits were very interesting and it must have been enormously frustrating to have been an intellectual under communism. Both writers actually seemed to do pretty well for themselves, though, and managed to stay on Hoxha’s good side. They even had diplomatic passports and were able to travel. But I’m sure it cost them compromises. Kadare, the more famous of the two, had bookshelves of banned foreign books in his private study. I imagine both could see how bad conditions were under Hoxha, but they had to be very subtle about incorporating it into their work, which was of course censored.
After the museum, we made a quick trip to to see the Et’hem Bej Mosque, an 18th century mosque near Skandeberg Square that we’d learned about and admired on our first walking tour. It is beautifully frescoed outside and in and really worth seeing. We got lucky that we arrived about 15 minutes before the 6 p.m. (I think) closing time. Google Maps said the closing time was an hour later. The caretaker allowed us in and we had plenty of time for photos but when we were leaving 10 minutes later, we noticed him turning others away. I think we just missed the cutoff time. The three night photos below are from later in the evening after we had dinner out, including one of the mosque exterior.
Food Favorites
Another highlight of our last couple of weeks in Tirana were several nice dinners out and a few lovely picnics. We continued to enjoy the large lake park and our neighborhood of Bloku. We also cooked some nice meals in our apartment, but I didn’t take any photos of those.
Summary
All and all, our month in Tirana was interesting but it is not one of our favorite places we’ve visited or had a long stay and I probably wouldn’t recommend it to most Americans traveling casually. I’d heard such great things about it though, that I’m glad we tried it for ourselves. And we’d certainly consider coming back in the future to see how it has changed. Just probably not for another long stay.
ABB Review – My husband and I had a great one-month stay in this apartment. Communication with the host was great. Jani is very organized and sent us a guide a week before. Excellent in-person check-in and he was easy to contact when needed, which was rare. The wifi, electricity, hot water, and everything worked perfectly through our whole stay. The kitchen was equipped for basic cooking. The apartment is very spacious. It was an easy walk to Blloku for great restaurants. Walking to the city center was also easy or there is a bus stop nearby.