Hotel Corona Tirana

... kleiden sich sehr westlich, man sieht we***** Kopftuech** als in Deutschland. Und alle 100m gibt es ein Casino.

Morgen geht es dann weit** gen Norden, sollte morgen Montenegro **reichen. Liege ganz gut in d** Zeit, kann v**mutlich einige Staedte an d** Kueste besichtigen, Inshallah.

Gruss
Ralf

P.S.
Dachte d** Pauschaltourismus ist noch nicht hi** angekommen, ab** im Nationalmuseum lief doch glatt eine deutsche Reisegruppe h**um.

... I have been wanting to see for a long time and for a long time the dictator Enver Hixha kept this small country closed off from the rest of the world. It is only recently that people have been able to start visiting this remote corner of the Adriatic. The road to and through Albania has been one of the most challenging of all my travels but the most rewarding. The plan was orginally to spend a few days here but my longer than planned stay at Lake Ohrid ...

... to be comedy, it didn't look that funny to me. I'll admit the blend of pop music that has evolved in Albania, which seems to be heavily influenced by Turkish music, is slightly soothing the first few times it's heard, but over and over again it quickly became fairly annoying. I decided that the only way to ignore the music and the frankly disturbing videos that accompanied it and attempt to get any sleep was to pretend I was ...

... fait une semaine aujourd'hui que je suis entre en albanie et je continue a trouver ce peuple bien sympathique malgre quelques defauts: tout le monde fume partout malgre les indications de ne pas fumer; plusieurs crachent (andre le. sait bcombien je deteste ca), a tirana, la circulation est folle ( c'est comme si on s'etait donne le mot pour tenter de frapper les pietons ...

... computer didn't seem to like my details and proceeded to crash. Judging by the length of time it took to re-boot if there is such a software as 'windows 1976' id be quietly confident that it's the software the computer was using. As I glanced back at the blank stares coming at me from the rest of the queue I was convinced that behind those eyes the thoughts of these Albanians was probably something like "pesky foreigners". There should have been a Eur10 entry tax charged to me but in ...

... of times when people asked me apprehensively if I was British and then got very excited when I said I was American. American flags were more popular there than they are in the States. When George Bush visited Albania he was greeted with a very warm welcome - much warmer than that of any other European country. I think most of this pro-America sentiment stems from the American backing of and aid money to Kosovo. Although I chose not to ...

... country and its people are not used to foreigners, they don't know how to treat them. At least that is the excuse I am attributing the attitude to - more on that later. The flipside is that much of the country is undiscovered and unspoilt by tourism, although this is changing quickly and there are plenty of Albanian tourists available to spoil the spots. We don't know all this, of course, while we are chatting to Sam and Oliver. It dawns on me at the time that ...

... castle museum, which gives the history of Albania and their national hero Skanderberg. Can't remember the details, but long story short, Skanderberg held off the Ottoman Empire for many years and won many battles across Albania. He's their national hero, and there are statues of him all over the world as it's thought he prevented the Ottomans from getting too far across Europe. In the afternoon, we headed to Trev and Kaye's house to play in the yard with the kids that are invariably ...

... then had to change to the minibus up the mountain to "Kruja". Was nothing really at Kruja, an old fort and souveneir market. Went to the fort. Im sure there was a guy scamming people to pay 100 leke (1 dollar) to enter. Bought a soveiner bunker then tried to leave. Walked up to the minibuses. Asked for Tirana. These joker guys said it was their minibus. This guy called Zelly (mid 50s) asked me where i was from, asked if i spoke Italianoish. His mate behind was pretind to do ...

... the church was our reward! An amazing 13th Century Church...with a monk to show just the three of us inside! From the first steps inside...a oh-so-quiet-hushed-in-amazement prevailed... Frescoes from floor-to-ceiling...blue the favorite color. Chandeliers of candles... Icons... From the first section we were led through a door an into the second... This larger chamber contained the remains of St. Stephen enclosed in a crypt...more icons...more ...