July 25-26
Hello everyone!
It’s now time to head north in order to get back to Prague.
This involves travelling through a variety of young nations which used to be
part of Yugoslavia. Many of these countries will be similar in terms of
language, food and culture. One, however, doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest.
That place happens to be my first stop: Albania.
Indeed, Albania is known for not fitting in. It is one of
the very few European languages not to be derived from the Latin or Slavic
families. It also famously went through a period of isolation throughout the
Cold War, somehow managing to shun the Yugoslavs, Americans, Russians and
Chinese at various points until it was left with no one else to turn to.
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| View of Gjirokaster's 'New Town' from the top of the Old Town hill |
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| The quality of transport in Albania: mostly better than this, thank goodness... |
They were led into isolation by a dictator called Enver Hoxha, a man who seems to be from the Stalin school of political repression. Interestingly enough, he was born in the hillside town of Gjirokaster: where I am now.
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| Enver Hoxha: universally unpopular in Albania since his death in 1985 |
His house, larger than most, is still visible on the street.
The fact that it is advertised as an ‘Ethnographic Museum’ rather than ‘Hoxha’s
House’ may give you some insight into how he is viewed nowadays, particularly
by the younger generation. The plaza you see below used to have a large statue
of Hoxha, with him looking over the town and being omnipresent. It’s not there
now: read into that what you will.
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| The House of Hoxha's birth |
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| What was once the lookout point of Hoxha's imposing statue has now been converted into a bar |
I learnt this, and much more, on a walking tour of the town
conducted by two high school students: Edita and Elisa. They also showed me
some of Gjirokaster’s hidden secrets, such as the ‘Crazy Street’, so called
because of the strange noises that drunk men’s shoes would make on the wet and
wobbly cobbles.
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| 'Crazy Street' |
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| This is a wall. The silver part is the remains of pop-out cutlery. Make do with what you can... |
The town is steep in many senses. The old town is situated
at the top of a particularly sheer slope; I had great fun lugging my backpack
up it whilst avoiding the incoming storm.
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| The last 5% of the road I had to lug my backpack up |
The castle is one of the largest in the Balkans and possibly
one of the oldest, with evidence of a 7th Century BC Iron Age
settlement. It was an important defensive location for the Ottoman Empire
during their centuries of rule in the Middle Ages.
Eventually the castle was used as a garrison and, during
Hoxha’s early rule, a prison for communist protestors. Part of the prison now
houses machine guns captured from the Italians and Germans during World War 2.
It also contains an Italian Fiat tank, one of only 283 produced.
One of the stranger additions to the castle is an American
spy plane which lost its bearings and had to land in Tirana. Why it’s ended up
here, I have no idea.
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| The American spy plane |
What aren’t steep are the prices. £1 is roughly 200 Albanian
lek. I’m sure you can imagine my joy at paying 350 lek for my dinner and beer
below. The food is a Gjirokaster speciality called Qifqi (pronounced tyif-tee –
remember I said that the language was like no other?), which are essentially
fried rice balls. You could make the
argument that quality, both in terms of food and drink, costs money. Not my
most satisfying meal.
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| How to have a lovely evening for less than £2 |
Being perched high in the hills, overlooking
precarious-looking slabs which are fashioned together to makes roofs,
Gjirokaster is a spectacular sight and possesses some extraordinary views. It’s
been a rather sedate introduction to life in Albania but one which I’ve enjoyed.
Love you all
Matt
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