You wouldn’t call Tirana a beautiful city, but it has a beating heart and is vibrant and highly walkable. It was battered and bruised and neglected for years and while some of the architecture shows Ottoman influences, a great deal more leans to Soviet-era buildings. Between 1944 and 1991, vast tracts of massive featureless apartment … More Tirana: Haunted by the past, but running toward the future.
Comparing Berat and Paris is certainly off-base, but our beautiful little boutique hotel was indeed situated on the Left Bank of the this old fortified city, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2008. This is the Hotel Koroni, open just 10 days after a lengthy renovation. The young owners bought the building three years ago, … More Berat: Living on Albania’s Left Bank
We were beginning to wonder if all the rave reviews we had read about Albania were exaggerated. We had an image in our minds of Albania (medieval villages, narrow cobblestoned streets, olive groves and vineyards) that we just weren’t seeing until we left the frenetic beach scene of Ksamil, drove up into the mountains and … More Gjirokaster: The Albania We Were Looking For
The Llogara Pass has also made the list on Dangerousroads.org but I think calling it “dangerous” is possibly overstating the case. This 31-km. high mountain pass that follows the coast from south of Vlora to Dhermi is a road that demands attention, but most people lucky enough to take this trip give the road the … More Following Julius Caesar on the Llogara Pass: One of the World’s Most Scenic Drives
If you’re a betting type, you might want to put your spare investment cash into a pied-a-terre in Albania. It is pretty much guaranteed to increase in value. As one of our recent hotel hosts said to us, “Albania is changing by the day.” This image of old versus new is Albania in 2023 – … More Albania: The Rising Star of the Balkans
Leaving Ourselves Behind 