My first stop on my European adventure was the country of Albania. Now I know a lot of people when you think of destinations for Europe, Albania isn’t usually the first place that comes to mind. When planning by my trip, it seemed like the perfect first place for me to start.
Why? Well, there’s plenty of reasons why I chose this as my starting point. The main reason is that the geographical location of Albania really easy for me to work my way up through many countries in the Balkans before meeting up with some of family early July in Prague. The second reason is that Albania is extremely affordable and offers lots of variation when it comes to geographical landscapes. You have big cities, beaches, and great mountains for trekking that I’m planning to see. And lastly, Albania has a very interesting history, especially recently with a brutal communist regime up until to the 1990s. The country was essentially similar to how North Korea is now where nobody lowed to come in and no one was allowed to leave. Any defectors would be shot at the border and successful defectors families would be sent to horrific labor camps. I find it unique and fascinating that they experienced it so recently and there are still many visible markings throughout the country that show their communist era. Albania is actually is one of Europe’s hottest new destinations and they have been seeing a rapid increase in tourism growth the last couple years. I think I might have come during the sweet spot where tourist infrastructure is set up to make for an enjoyable time here but also is not too over crowded with foreigners yet.
Wednesday May 8th: $55.89 spent
Upon touching down at the Tirana International Airport I went to go find my shuttle to take me to downtown Toronto which was about a 45 minute bus ride and only costed about $4. They dropped me off at the main Skanderbeg Square and my first course of action was to find somewhere to pee and also exchange some of the US dollars that I had into Albanian Lek. It was a quick realization that public bathrooms aren’t really a thing in Europe. The money exchanger lady recommended that i run into the coffee shop across the street, order a 90 cent espresso and use their bathroom.
Unfortunately, during my 30 minute walk to my hostel, I received some pretty devastating news that one of my grandparents just passed away, Mike Newland. It really just put in perspective how to not take the opportunities that I have for granted, that life is truly short and make the most of the time I have now. I was really grateful that I got to spend some quality time with him before I left the country.
Even with the unfortunate news, I tried my best to prop myself up into as good of a mood as possible, knowing that I’m about to check into a hostel solo with a bunch of strangers I’ve never met before. Upon that first hour of being in the hostel, I made my first friend of this solo journey, Nicole. She was an American from San Diego and was on a six-week sabbatical from her company.After I settled in, we decided to go out to get some drinks and food in the Blloku neighborhood that night. Blloku is a fascinating upscale part of downtown Tirana where trendy restaurants and shops are located. It was a part of the city where the Communist elite lived during the regime and regular people were not allowed inside. Nicole and I shared probably 2 bottles of wine and a platter of very small and overly salted chicken wings, sausage and fries. Nicole was a lovely girl and we shared quite a bit in common and she helped really eased me into the friend making process while traveling solo. I would soon come to realize over the week that meeting people and having conversations with strangers is so simple while solo traveling but I just needed that first step to boost my confidence in doing so. We spent about 3 hours or so bar hopping and watching Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich soccer match before she had to go back to the hostel to pack since she was leaving Albania to meet her mom in Italy early the next morning. I made it back to the hostel and made conversation with many more people from literally all corners of the world. The best of which was my bunk mate, Juan, who was from Mexico City.
Thursday May 9th: $39.36 spent
For my first full day in Tirana, I started off by doing a 2 hour free walking tour of the city (free but tips are appreciated at the end). We started in the main Skanderbeg Square and saw popular tour sites such as the Pyramid of Tirana, the Ethem Bay Mosque, the Orthodox Church, and the Blloku area. Instead of boring you guys with the complete history of Albania that I learned, I’ll just give you one of the more interesting facts from the tour. All material possessions were owned by the state during the communist period including houses, clothing, cars, etc. The only thing that citizens had the right to own outright was one Chinese made bicycle.
After the tour I went to one of the popular museums in Tirana called Bunk Art 2. This is just 1 of the 176,000 bunkers that were created during the communist era by their dictator Enver Hoxha. He was extremely concerned that being in such close proximity to many enemies, they could be attacked at any point. So instead of using money to help improve the lives of many, he created countless bunkers to be able to hold every citizen in the country safely in case of surprise attack. This specific bunker that the museum was located in, was specifically a bunker for the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the regime. The museum went into more specifics about the rise of Communism in Albania and details of the country during the regime period.
It was starting to get late after the museum and I was getting hungry so I headed to the most popular restaurant in all of Tirana called Oda. I got one of the most traditional dishes in Albania which is basically just grilled peppers cooked in like a sort of cottage cheese. It was served with bread and was a lot more filling than I expected. It would never be a dish that I would typically order, but I felt the need to due to its popularity. I went back to the hostel, had some homemade raki (which is Albanias traditional alcohol and tastes like a fruitier vodka sort of) with some more friends that I made and went to bed.
Friday May 10th: $42.77 spent
After a big brunch provided by the hostel the next morning, I took a bus about 25 minutes outside of the city center of Tirana to a place called Dajti Mountain. I took this huge cable car about 15 minutes up the mountain which costed about $14. Once you got to the top of the mountain there really wasn’t too much to do. There were some extensive hiking trails that you could do but I opted not to do them just because of time and it didn’t seem like anything special. Kind of just walked around the top and explored the area near the cable car drop off point. They had mini golf course, horse riding and some airsoft gun shooting. Nothing I opted to do. I’d say the entire experience wasn’t necessarily worth the price but it did give fantastic panoramic views of the city.
Right by that cable car was the Bunk Art 1 museum, which is very similar to the Bunk Art 2 museum I visited the day before. However, this one is about three times the size of Bunk Art 2, and this one was actually meant to be the location for the dictator Enver Hoxha to go to in case of an attack on the country of Albania. So it was a bit more important.
it was about midday at that point so I decided to head back towards the city center and I walked around the entirety of the Grand Park of Tirana. The park houses a huge lake in the middle and I walked the entire outside proximity of the lake. I was getting pretty hungry after that and was craving some pasta and some gelato. So thats what I had and how I ended my night.
Saturday May 11th: $47.68 spent
The next day was probably my favorite of the trip so far. I booked a tour to hike to a lake called Bovilla Lake. I was actually thinking about getting to the lake by myself and just renting a car but I’m very happy that I didn’t. The tour only costed $25 and the roads to get there were pretty sketchy and would’ve stressed me out own my own. I sat next to a guy from Poland named Marciek who basically became my buddy for the entire 7ish hour tour. The hike up to the main viewing point was semi challenging. An older British couple could not make it anywhere near the top and I felt bad for them. The views were absolutely stunning and this lake actually is the main source of drinking water for all the residents of Tirana which I didn’t realize before the tour.
We got back from the tour pretty late in the afternoon and there was a street food festival happening in the main square. Unfortunately I walked around it and they only had about ten vendors and literally 5 of them were only selling beer so I decided to leave and go to a place that sells Souvlaki (similar to a Gyro) for only two dollars a piece. It had chicken, onion, fries, mayo, mustard and ketchup. I had one and it tasted fantastic and I decided chow down a second one. That was pretty much my entire day.
Sunday May 12th: $55.38 spent
The next day was the start of my last full official day in Tirana and at this point I was starting to realize that I probably booked one night too long in Tirana since I had most of the main attractions the city offers. I did some laundry in the morning and grabbed a meat byrek for lunch (which is like a pastry with minced lamb). Mine didn’t seem the most fresh nor did it include as much meat as I was hoping for. Afterwards, I went with some friends I met Stefan from Romania and Charlotte from Germany to another museum called the House of Leaves. This was basically a house in the middle of Tirana used for the KGB equivalent for Albania during the Communist period to spy on their own citizens.
I had a lot of time in the afternoon just to finish my laundry and pack my bag so I’d be all ready to leave early the next morning. I spent some time hanging out with two Buddies (Ewan and Matt) that I kind of became close with over the last couple days both from Canada. We ended up going to dinner that night back at the same Restaurant that I had those peppers and cottage cheese on my second night. We all ordered a cooked lamb, stuffed peppers and beer and just chatted about life, traveling and sports. Those were some great dudes.
General Takeaways from my time here:
- People smoke way too many cigarettes here
- There is incredible harmony between all religions in Albania. Which also means there are lots of holidays in Albania and even if you are Protestant, you still celebrate Muslim holidays and vice versa.
- Most people are generally friendly but everyone has a constant hardcore resting bitch face. I’ve heard it’s a Balkan thing in general though. It is hard to make any interactions with locals.
- Albanian music sounds exactly like reggaeton but in Albanian.
- Everyone wears pants here, I seldom saw anyone in shorts.
- People care ALOT about the way they present themselves. Most importantly in their fashion sense, hairstyles and cars they drive.
- It is so easy to meet people when traveling solo. I have probably exchange contacts with more people in these 5 days than I did my entire 3 years living in Seattle. Thats not an exaggeration either. There are a lot of other people doing the same and everyone is looking to make conversation. For the most part, most people you meet have very interesting backgrounds too.
2 responses to “Starting My European Summer in Tirana, Albania for 5 Days”
We really enjoy following your adventures. Great experiences!
Love these posts Keaton. Makes it feel like we are there with you.