Triana Albania

The apartment is huge. Three rooms. Bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/living room. Its on the ground floor and the windows are so high up in the tall walls that you cant see out of them. I have a feeling of being partially underground. The outside space is the gated yard shared with the family. Its all pristine.

The sister walks us to an all night supermarket to buy some food. Athough its quite late at night there are a lot of people about. I just want to eat something (anything) and go to bed.

Time to explore. The wifi is not fantastic but good enough, and tells us that there is a tourist info not far away. We find it easily and get a map. As it happens we are very central and everything is within walking distance. There seem to be lots of banks and ATM`s. Also lots of coffee shops. After a couple of days we learn that life revolves around coffee.

We are a short and easy walk from Skandebeg square. 40,000 square metres of tiled floor with water features. These are fed by an underground spring apparently. They bring a cool relief from the scorching sun. Some are waterjets and others simply bubble out of slots in the tiles. All are enjoyed by children, adults and dogs alike. Around the square are some impressive buildings, the Opera, the Albanian history museum, the mosque. And presiding over them all is the most impressive statue of Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti Skenderbeu astride a horse. Walking straight on past this statue you find a pleasant garden, then a long straight road lined with grand buildings, then past the Tirana Pyramid, a post communist piece of architecture sadly neglected and grafittied. I fear it will be too far gone to restore soon. It was hailed as the most expensive building in Albania when it was built. Carrying on down the road, you finally reach the Tirana polytechnical college. Behind this is a huge park which includes memorials to British and German soldiers (seperately obviously!). This is a cool and quiet place with winding paths through the trees. There is also a large lake which I think it manmade. It is a nice space but sadly under utilised. There are a couple of coffee shops and ice cream vendors, but I cant help thinking how more could be made of it.

Back in the city centre we find the permanent outdoor market with a roof to protect it from the weather. Love a market. Fruit and vegetables, eggs, pots, rugs, old pieces of random `stuff` and flowers. And tobacco! Blocks the size of house bricks. And all the other tobacco related products, papers, pipes, filters, pouches, lighters, cigarette cases etc. The last time I saw tobacco sold loose was in a little shop in Boltro Road, Haywards Heath, that closed down years ago. Bordering the market are coffe shops, ice cream shops, and Bicyklette bar. This bar is fabulous. The bar stools are the seat and pedals part of old bicycles, the light fittings hang from bicycle chains. Its really inventive and imaginative. Its also worth a trip to the loo, the handbasin is a massive chunk of hollowed out stone and the plumbing is big old copper pipes with isolation valves serving as taps. Love it! Great people watching area from the tables on the steps outside.

On our return from a day out we let our selves in to the yard and find the ladies of the family enjoying the cool of the evening. We are invited to join them and given fizzy orange drinks. They are fascinated by our journey. We explain where we have been and where we are going. Albania is a poor country, people have no spare money. Seriously, living day by day. Coffee is their social life, they meet friends for coffee and a glass of water and make it last hours. Strong alcohol is rarely drunk, beer is the regular drink. We havent seen any signs of excess at all here. Our hosts told us to be careful on our wandering around the city, but most crime is not directed at tourists. There are signs of poverty but the people are dignified. You do get gypsy children and old gypsy ladies begging but we were told not to give them anything else we would get surrounded. Some people in the market seemed to sleep under thier stalls, notably the walnut man (who sells walnuts and other dried nuts and beans). He is still wearing the same clothes as the first day we saw him, at the end of the day he simply shuffles under the stall and goes to sleep.

Initially we struggled to find anywhere to eat. We ate at the pigbar in the market on the first day. Thier fare is everything piggy, we had a huge plate of ribs served with bread and tomato salad. It took an internet search to find a nearby restaurant. They are simply not obvious. Internet showed us that `Gozip` was just down the alley and over the road, and they served breakfast. Hurrah. Off we go. No menu, just ask for breakfast, coffee and water. What you get is cheese omelette, feta cheese, tomato and cucumber with a sourcream dip (like tzatziki) and bread. The restaurant is up a little alley that you would pass by without a glance. Once in the alley it opens into a cool space with tables and chairs set out under an awning, mister fans (big fans with water fed across them) cool and freshen the air. Plants add to the ambience and divide the space up. After breakfast I head inside in search of the ladies and also to pay the bill. Wow! What a surprise, inside is a very sophisticated looking bar with great modern artwork, comfy seating with sexy artficial snakeskin covers, then behind the bar is a great indoor restuarant for when the weather is less warm. We are coming back for dinner! Oh, what a treat. We choose the seafood appetiser to share, followed by homemade pasta, spinach and gorganzola ravioli for me, mushroom orecchiette for Norman. The seafood was a work of art. A big board spread with little fish cakes, stuffed muscles, sesame prawns, baby squid stuffed with prawn puree, fried little fish (bit bigger than whitebait), little pasties filled with chopped fish, smoked salmon with orange, octopus, and ceviche of white fish. Little pots of chilli sauce. Horseradish etc complemented the dish. Wow! So, we started with a G&T and a Jack Daniels, had a half litre of excellent Albanian red wine , two espressos each accompanied by rakis (schnapps) and this fantastic meal. All for less than £25. There has obviously been some serious money spent on this restaurant, its only been open three months, it deserves to survive but I fear for its future without marketing. The staff are enthusiastic and talented. It would be booked out weeks in advance at home in the UK.

We keep getting asked how we heard about Albania. I reply that it was through the internet. It is not being well sold as a tourist destination, but it so deserves to be. We stumbled across Albania as a way to get across to Greece avoiding Kosovo. As a country it is poor and trying hard to get out of this trap. The people are friendly, generous, polite and funny.

Norman had a joke with our waitress last night. She bought our raki accompanied by large glasses of iced water. Norman pointed at the water and said `is this one the raki?`. She almost said `no` then realised he was joking. When she bought a second round out she, pointedly said `the little one is the raki`.