The houses in Albania are fairly patchwork, thrown together with no building codes or city planning whatsoever, but there appears to be some order in the chaos and it works. Most are decorated with bright pastel colors: orange, pink, yellow, and lime green seemed to be the favorites. And usually more than one color was featured on each floor.
Driving and the roads were an interesting experience as well. Donkey carts and old cars as well as Mercedes and other luxury vehicles all darted in and out of the non-existent lanes on the pot-holed streets and highways.
The history is and interesting one as well. The fairly totalitarian government dominated until recently, and in fact private cars were forbidden until just 12 years ago. Also, there are over 400,000 mushroom-shaped concrete bunkers (one for every four citizens) dotted the landscape in order to protect the country from invading forces.
We started off exploring the capital city of Tirana. It was a hot day, and our first stop was the national history museum, which housed a very impressive collection of artifacts from the country's long history. The Illyrians were the original inhabitants and their societies date back to before the Greeks and Romans. Also, the Greeks had some impressive cities here (see Apollonia, below) and the archeological finds contained in the museum were numerous.
We walked around the main square of town, and then took the cable car up to the mountains for a panoramic view of the city, and for lunch. It was much cooler at the higher altitude, which was a welcome relief from the heat of the day. We then drove out of town to Petrela Castle, which had gorgeous views as well.
The following day, we visited an icon museum, and then drove to Durres to visit the largest Roman amphitheater in the Balkans. After that we had a long drive to Apollonia, which was a Greek town where many of the future Roman emperors were sent to study. They have only excavated 1% of the site, but even what we did see was impressive. On the way, we saw a bride in her wedding dress walking through a small village and we stopped to take pictures. They asked where we were from and when we said America, they immediately invited our entire group to come and enjoy the party! They have us candy and food and invited us to dance with them. The openness and hospitality of these people was really touching, especially considering the fact that they had very little money and wanted to share what little they did have with us. It was a highlight of the trip, and unexpected. What a great cultural experience!
The following day we were all sad when it was time to leave Albania for Macrdonia.
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