Albania, Anyone?

For a definite change of scene, we moved on from Greece to Albania for one day. Albania is really really really interesting. And I mean that in every sense of the word.

The countryside itself is like nothing I’ve seen before – sheets and sheets of layered rock.

The majority of the country is hillside, so you can be guaranteed a backdrop of mountains in almost every direction.

And then dotted all over the place are these concrete bunkers, left over from the country’s communist history.

Their dictator was apparently completely paranoid about attack from other countries, and spent most of the national resources on defensive mechanisms that were never really used. The older roads are all windy and narrow so that airoplanes couldn’t land on them, and they have 800,000 of these bunkers throughout the country.

The place certainly has a rugged beauty.

We took a bus trip up to Gjirokaster (which Tom keeps calling Giroblaster), an old, very well preserved town, where all of the original buildings are made of stone, with stone rooves. They’re apparently a nightmare to maintain.

Perched above the town is a huge old castle.

It houses a very impressive collection of old artillery, having been a museum in its more recent history.

There’s also a giant statue of the ‘Unknown Soldier’. He looks remarkably like Tom’s paternal grandfather, which is a bit strange.

Here’s Tom demonstrating the statue’s sheer size.

Sitting above the castle… an American spy plane, that was “encouraged to land”, and the pilot released back to the Americans. Go figure!

And a fairly impressive view.

And what do you know… a clock tower!

Here’s Tom on the walk back down to the town from the castle.

In the town itself, we observed some slightly less imposing statues…

And some very pretty buildings.

And I managed to fall into a hole in the street – as in my right leg fell down up to my upper thigh. I still haven’t got a clue how it happened! No-one believes me when I say I’m sure there wasn’t an open hole there before I stepped on it. I’m convinced something broke and revealed the hole. Because seriously. How do I miss a hole deep enough to completely submerge my leg?

Anyway. No serious harm done, just a few scrapes and a bruise. And a bit of a reputation on the boat for being the one that falls into holes now. Hehe.

We didn’t stay very long at all in Albania. The town of Saranda where we were docked was not at all picturesque or tourist friendly.

During the time that Albania was communist, the country was apparently the poorest one in Europe. In the most recent twenty years they have started to catch up, and on our hour-long bus ride from Saranda to Gjirokaster we saw this in abundance. Virtually no building we saw was entirely complete, the place is almost entirely under construction.

So! Certainly interesting, and in stark contrast to our Grecian experiences of late. If you ever go to Albania, mind your step!