albania

[frogwoman]

anyone been recently? i'm planning a trip (possibly) for next year ... what are the best things to do/see?

what is tirana like these days? I've seen pictures of some of it but is there much going on in the evenings - are there any decent bars, clubs and the like?

i'd quite like to visit places like durres and shkoder as well, is there much going on there?

also, are there flights from tirana to belgrade, and are there any erm, "problems" doing this? it's just that if i go, i would want to spend some time in serbia as well, and i would rather not go through kosovo ...

 

[pk]

Tirana is amazing, nearly all the shitty concrete kiosks have gone from the centre and the city is enjoying a kind of renaissance under the mad mayor Edi Rama, who decided the best and cheapest way to brighten up his city was to paint the tower blocks in psychedelic colours.

It's still pretty basic in terms of resources, and the sight of Roma kids begging on busy highways is grim, but it is well worth a visit, for the architecture alone if not for the warmth and pride of the people.

Durres is OK, still plenty of Hoxha's remnants, an estimated 3 concrete machine gun posts for every man woman and child, the paranoid nutter!
Not as interesting as Tirana, to be honest, but it has a nice beach.

Clubs and bars - in Tirana? Well, if you go to the old government quarter where Hoxha used to live, it is now thriving with bars serving good cheap cocktails and the like, it's where the young folk go to drink and show off and you'll be lucky to get a seat in most places.

I would recommend eating out, the Serenata is a top place, and there are many really amazing restaurants that the locals won't hesitate to suggest visiting. Expect to pay about £20 for a three course meal including a bottle of nice wine.
My favourite restaurant was one behind the National Museum (the one with the famous workers mural on it) and I cannot remember the name for the life of me but it was incredible.

Often the social life and the activity depends on the time of year and the day of the week though, when I went, some days many places were shut for apparently no reason... then the next day they'd be packed, it was odd.

Be careful on the roads, they drive like psychopaths and the cars are usually really knackered, avoid little European cars and stick to cabbies who drive Mercs (i.e. most of them).

Some of the high speed antics such as three-way overtaking whilst travelling at 100mph on shitty potholed roads will mess with your head a bit, but if you get a car with rear seat belts (a rarity in Albania) then just hope for the best.

Be aware that many people, especially in the North of the country, are in pretty desperate poverty, so they won't hesitate to nick your stuff if you leave it on show.
Basic common sense and awareness will overcome this.

Have a good time. Tirana rocks.

 

[zoltan]

Tirana is amazing, nearly all the shitty concrete kiosks have gone from the centre and the city is enjoying a kind of renaissance under the mad mayor Edi Rama, who decided the best and cheapest way to brighten up his city was to paint the tower blocks in psychedelic colours.

It's still pretty basic in terms of resources, and the sight of Roma kids begging on busy highways is grim, but it is well worth a visit, for the architecture alone if not for the warmth and pride of the people.

Durres is OK, still plenty of Hoxha's remnants, an estimated 3 concrete machine gun posts for every man woman and child, the paranoid nutter!
Not as interesting as Tirana, to be honest, but it has a nice beach.

Clubs and bars - in Tirana? Well, if you go to the old government quarter where Hoxha used to live, it is now thriving with bars serving good cheap cocktails and the like, it's where the young folk go to drink and show off and you'll be lucky to get a seat in most places.

I would recommend eating out, the Serenata is a top place, and there are many really amazing restaurants that the locals won't hesitate to suggest visiting. Expect to pay about £20 for a three course meal including a bottle of nice wine.
My favourite restaurant was one behind the National Museum (the one with the famous workers mural on it) and I cannot remember the name for the life of me but it was incredible.

Often the social life and the activity depends on the time of year and the day of the week though, when I went, some days many places were shut for apparently no reason... then the next day they'd be packed, it was odd.

Be careful on the roads, they drive like psychopaths and the cars are usually really knackered, avoid little European cars and stick to cabbies who drive Mercs (i.e. most of them).

Some of the high speed antics such as three-way overtaking whilst travelling at 100mph on shitty potholed roads will mess with your head a bit, but if you get a car with rear seat belts (a rarity in Albania) then just hope for the best.

Be aware that many people, especially in the North of the country, are in pretty desperate poverty, so they won't hesitate to nick your stuff if you leave it on show.
Basic common sense and awareness will overcome this.

Have a good time. Tirana rocks.

This is accurate ^^^^pretty much

( you should have PMd me! but im not online much at the minute )

There are loads of ways into Alb - over the mountians by bus, across the close border with POdgorica. from THessalonki

I find the less well usee boders - eg Skhodra- very good.No hassle , expect we had to play the border guards ar chess as it was quiet - My mate beat 3 of them!

Ive usually done Begrad to POd by O/N nigtt train, the a 10 EUR taxi ride to Skhodra Grenze / border- you can get to Tiarana by taxi from there - its not far - dont expect elecricity 24/7though - no probs with the crossing to Alb from the FYR on the train

Skhodra is interesting & so very close to the Accursed Mountains for onward travel or barking exploring of the area- again, a decent Merc 240 D taxi will we good for this

Expect a big culture shock - the people are friendly and accomdating, but the EUR is king - there is litter shit everywhere - you get used to it

the Albs - unlike their image of murdering gangsters- are really nice ( if thats not too patronising ) - very proud but happy to talk & have a beer with a visitor

Dont get pissed in dark areas- but thats not unusual to Albania these days

Or the daily ferry from Bari is Ok & pretty cheap - Ryainairfly to Bari

Durres has a fantastic Roman ampitheatre with Christ mosaics, that seems utterly abandonded until the old lady who looks after it appears & gives you a tour-ette for a couple of EUR

fuck, I dont know what else to write, but its fascinating and well worth going to - its one of my favorite places to go to when I get time - seriously, do it!

 

[frogwoman]

do you mean albania usually uses the euro or the local currency?

the accursed mountains? that doesn't sound good - sounds really fascinating though - i can't wait

 

[phildwyer]

I saw Albania from Corfu. At night it went completely dark, which I take to mean that they have no electricity there.

 

[pk]

How long ago was that though Phil?

I saw Albania from Corfu in '90, we were warned that if we took the pedalo boats out too far, we might get strafed by gunboat fire.

You could see the patrol boats too, with binocs or at sunrise.

Always wanted to go there as a result of that imposing secretive nature, and when I did I was more impressed by the spirit and pride of the Albanians than anything else. I love that bright square Bauhaus architecture, and there's plenty of that. Plus all the bonus mosques, and cultural buildings, mad cafe bars in the middle of nowhere, things you see happening in front of you that are unique to Albania!

I don't know about the power cuts, but it stands to reason, a country with little economic or social infrastructure that is so dependent upon the US economy should expect to get shafted in times of trouble.

Just be aware that the North, (I think it is fair to say this, Zoltan?) is generally where you need to watch what you are doing and who you are with.

But go. You will not regret it. After the flight, if you are careful you can live there for little money and it has to be seen to be believed, before it all changes again. Get in there while you can.

You would certainly be mirë se erdhët there...

 

[frogwoman]

i can't wait to go, it sounds like such a cool place ...

 

[frogwoman]

when did you go PK? it was this year, wasn't it?

i know it's (nominally) a muslim country, but is there a dress code there? how conservative are people, generally speaking? I'm thinking in terms of walking around in t-shirts and the like ..

also, do people there generally understand english - not that this is a problem if they don't, but i'm curious really ...

 

[phildwyer]

How long ago was that though Phil?

2005. But I don't care if they have no electricity, I'd still love to go. I had booked a day-trip to Tirana from Dubrovnik once, but it got cancelled at the last minute because of some flare-up or other. But I'll definitely get there soon--reports please Froggie.

 

[zoltan]

I don't know about the power cuts, but it stands to reason, a country with little economic or social infrastructure that is so dependent upon the US economy should expect to get shafted in times of trouble.

Just be aware that the North, (I think it is fair to say this, Zoltan?) is generally where you need to watch what you are doing and who you are with.

A fair point - I do tend to err on the wrong side of danger sometimes, but had no probs there- though you dont want to go wandering around deserted mountain passes if you are w woman by yourself - thats true everywhere to a lesser extent

Skhodra - in the North - is random leccy wise, but most hotels have fat generators sitting in containers on the pavement for these times - as you can guess, no streetlights, but theres not a great deal of nightlife really.Actually, outside Tirana, the roads & basic services range from rubbish to non existant - basics like trash colelction dont exist in many places, sweres bleed onto the streets & sometimes the tapwater has ( cant rememebr the name ) that nasty bug that wipes you out & hangs around for years.Buy you can work around these issues easily

Def. worth a vist

many do speak a handful of English or more likely Italian - many many Albs have relatives & Family in Italy & the rest of europe

go go go go

 

[frogwoman]

yeah, if i did go it would be with other people, not on my own ... ooh *gets excited* xx

 

[teuchter]

I'm bumping this thread because I'm considering paying a visit to Albania in September.

Frogwoman, did you go in the end?

 

[teuchter]

bump

 

[ViolentPanda]

bump

Froggie went to Moldova for 6 months, IIRC.

 

[teuchter]

bump

 

[quimcunx]

Froggie didn't go to Albania in the end.

I meant to tell you that before.

 

[teuchter]

I was hoping that someone might have been to Albania recently.

 

[frogwoman]

Froggie went to Moldova for 6 months, IIRC.

9 months ...

 

[strung out]

I was hoping that someone might have been to Albania recently.

someone has, i'm sure of that

 

[teuchter]

Well, I went there, last week. Only for three days because I had limited time and it was part of a general spin around the Balkans.

It really doesn't match up with the image I think most people (including me up until a little while ago) have of Albania - some kind of lawless bandit country with people driving around in stolen cars shooting each other and organising people-traficking operations. Of course, some of that might go on, and there are a suspiciously large number of Mercedes, but it didn't feel unsafe or threatening to me at any time, either in Tirana or the countryside.

Likewise Tirana wasn't quite as I'd imagined it (from what I'd read) - which was as some two-horse town with no proper roads and constant power cuts and crumbling communist monuments everywhere. In fact, the central part felt a bit like a northern Italian town and brighter, more elegant and more prosperous-looking than what I'd usually expect in an ex-communist country. The central square was in a bit of a mess but this was because there seemed to be some quite substantial renovation work going on. Once you get off the main central boulevards though, it's a slightly different story - a ramshackle mix of badly built 60s apartment blocks and older clay-tile roofed houses, with cluttered shops and lots of other activity at the street level - kind of a more eastern feel and a bit more like what you might expect in a third world city than other places I've been in Eastern Europe. And there are all the apartment blocks that were painted in (now slightly faded) multicoloured patterns as part of city-wide effort to cheer the place up a bit a few years back.

In the countryside, mostly quite un-modernised with fairly old fashioned farming methods; lots of haystacks and corn being dried, and brightly coloured fruit and vegetables for sale everywhere, and very attractive landscape especially up in the mountains. It makes you realise how much modern farming impacts the appearance of the land. Plenty of donkeys and a few horse-drawn carts knocking about.

I got the impression that there isn't really any kind of developed tourist industry at the moment (although this may be different down by the coast; I was mainly inland) even in Tirana, and the result of this was that in the more rural parts I got a few curious looks from people, but also that despite it still being an obviously poor country in many parts, there weren't people begging or out to try and scam visitors. The Albanians I spoke to on trains etc were all very open and friendly to me.

I didn't run into any other (obvious) tourists anywhere except around the obvious "sights" in Tirana. Albania, it seems, is yet to be infested with backpacker hostels so I didn't even see much of that lot around either (although again maybe it's different on the coast).

It's an interesting place in lots of ways (for example in contrast to some of the rest of the Balkans it's a largely secular society) and probably one that is changing quite quickly; I'd like to go back for longer some time.

In short, I'd not hesitate to recommend going to there to anyone who's comfortable travelling independently.

I might post some photos once I've got them all sorted out.

One of my reasons for going to Albania was to travel on the railways, which was a bit of an adventure; without a doubt the most decrepit trains I've been on (and I've been on a few) and the experience was fun but also sad to see the system left to fall apart at the seams and who knows how much longer it'll even exist. I might do a spod-oriented thread on that in the transport forum at some point though.

Oh, and I managed to miss the national mourning for Norman Wisdom by about a day.

 

[frogwoman]

thanks for the post teuchter.

 

[teuchter]

As far as border practicalities go, by the way -

I entered the country from FYRO Macedonia: train from Skopje up to Bitola (really nice train journey, worth doing in itself), then a bus from there to Ohrid (hour and a bit). Ohrid is on Lake Ohrid and is considered one of the top beauty spots in Macedonia, unfortunately practicalities meant I couldn't stay long and have a proper look around. From there you can get buses to Sveti Naum, which is a bit further round the lake and close to the Albanian border. My initial plan was to get a bus there, then taxi to the border, then taxi from the border to Pogradec which is the closest town inside Albania. In the end I found a taxi driver in Ohrid who could take me right the way through (he had visa etc to get through the border) and I went for that because it cut out a lot of faffing about and unknowns. About 25€. He claimed he needed a bit extra to slip to the border police...not sure whether that was really true or not. Anyway, it was a fairly quiet border crossing and I couldn't see any Albanian taxis waiting on the other side so if I'd just shown up there on foot maybe it would have been a hassle to get onward transport.

Once in Albania I got the train from Pogradec down to Tirane. Very scenic but very slow. Beware that Pogradec station is actually about 3k outside of the town.

On the way out, I crossed from Shkodra over to Ulcinj (Montenegro). One of the train conductors on the train from Tirane-Shkodra offered (via a guy I met on the train who spoke a bit of English) to drive me to the border point...went for it because it saved faffing around. Paid him about 15€ I think. He dropped me at the border and there were a couple of (Albanian) taxis waiting about there who could take me across into Montenegro (even though it was fairly late in the evening ). It was about €20 to Ulcinj. I think all these taxi fares could be bargained down a bit with some shopping around but I was on a bit of a tight schedule so didn't really try very hard.

From Ulcinj there are pretty regular buses to Bar, from where I got the train back up into Serbia and Belgrade. That's quite a scenic journey too.

Coming from Britain probably the quickest way into Albania is on the ferry from Bari ini Italy to Durres, but I found that most of the fast ones had stopped operating by late September, so that would be a whole-day or overnight trip.

 

[not-bono-ever]

The Ferry is teh best way to arrive

Durres is a dusty gem

 

[swishy]

Durres is a dusty gem

I think its the Lonely Planet Guide that describes Durres quite unkindly, but then the same guide claims Dubrovnik to be more or less something from heaven and Lake Bled in Slovenia similarly. After visiting both I learned to take the guide with a pinch of salt. Anyway, this is the very thread I'm looking for as I'm planning a March/April 3 week stint in Albania/Macedonia and hopefully seeing Kosovo too. I dipped my toe into Skhodra last year but didn't have time to go beyond, and I wasn't ready for the apparant lack of tourist infostructure either. In Bosnia/Croatia/Montenegro, people came up to me as I got off trains or buses and offered me rooms. In Skhodra I found myself dropped off at some rough piece of ground by a football stadium. Scary The first street I saw was a giant litterbin, as has been mentioned above, and my first impression was 'how the hell do I get out of here'. I'd agree with what has been said about the warmth of the people and I warmed to the place because of this. Memories of Skhodra - masses of cars and bicycles from loads of directions driving round a tin can (roundabout) with the bikes often going the opposite way to the cars. I've heard drivers are nuts in Tirana. I didn't think they drove particularly fast in Skhodra however. Just as well! This time round I want to see lot more of rural Albania but I haven't a clue where I'll stay. Any suggestions from people who have been?

 

[not-bono-ever]

Dont believe those bearded prigs at the LP.Durres is fanscinating - you are literally stepping on history wherever you go - from the more recent Italian temoraray invasion, back through Hoxha to the Pre Roman era. Yes its a bit grubby and if you want Bulgari jewellery, then you should fuck off to MIlan , but as an introduction to Albania, then its a breeze. And its one of the few places to get a train to/from - that ( as T. mentioned) is an experience in itself.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

 

[teuchter]

Some photos

Taken from the train in the area around Lake Ohrid, near the border with Macedonia. Some very appealing landscapes here, largely due to the old-fashioned farming methods I mentioned earlier. Haystacks everywhere at this time of year.

One of the ubiquitous bunkers by the shore of Lake Ohrid

A lot of half-built houses everywhere.

There are a lot of abandoned industrial sites visible, many obviously previously connected to the railway line. Seems like a lot of these industries have just been abandoned along with any investment in the railways.

 

[teuchter]

The area around Perrenjas

Railway graveyard

 

[teuchter]

Sorry some of the photos are a little ropey... it's not easy to take good photos from a moving train.

Fairly mountainous area between Perrenjas and Elbasan

Another half-built house. I saw a lot where a two or three storey concrete frame had been built, with just one storey filled in with brickwork and finished off. Presumably to allow for future expansion when funds allow. Many had steel reinforcement sticking out the top of the "roof", again presumably to cater for future expansion. Most of the newly built houses aren't exactly pretty, and often seemingly just plonked in the middle of nowhere.

 

[teuchter]

Not far from Tirana

Main square in Tirana - a lot of rebuilding work going on

Some of the central part of Tirana is fairly well-groomed

And no shortage of new expensive cars knocking around