8/11/2019 Albania, The Hidden Treasure

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O c t o b e r 5 2 0 1 3TRAVEL 7O c t o b e r 5 2 0 1 3 TRAVEL6

Albania, the hidden treasureMENTIONt hat you have decided tovisit the birthplace ofKing Zog andStalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, whoshut the country offfrom the rest of

the world for four decades, and peo-ple simply ask, Why?

Yet Albania, on the western sideof the Balkan peninsula bordered byMontenegro, Kosovo, Greece andMacedonia, and 72km from Ital y,has a surprising amount to offer from sandy beaches to great food, anumber of UN Educational, Scien-tific and Cultural Organisation (Un-esco) world heritage sites, historygoing back thousands of years and300 days of sunshine a year.

It wasnt until after the fall ofcommunism that Albania openedup, and it remains one of Europesundiscovered tourist hotspots. It stillsuffers from a negative image, hav-ing exported Albanian gangsterswho trafficked people, and the disas-trous financial pyramid scheme thatbrought the countr y, already thepoorest in Europe, to its knees.

Its still very corrupt, but ifyoure only going for a week, its arecherch and niche destination andsafe for tourists, and while notwildly friendly, people are helpful

even when you cant speak Albanianand they cant speak English.

My introduction began atSaranda, a 30-minute ferry rideacross the Ionian Sea from Corfu.The lively port suffers from the ini-tial growing pains of an unregulatedand developing market too manypackage-holiday style hotels.

In its favour, the country doeshave an outstanding coastline and isa foodie paradise, which is interest-ing considering that rationing ex-isted from 1986 to 1992.

You do need to know where to goand what to order, but when you do,it is a unique experience with culi-nary influences from Greece, Italyand 500 years of Ottoman rule. Al-banian wine can be unexpectedly de-licious. Cobo (pronounced Chobo),both red and white, is as good asmany Italian wines.

One of the many interesting factsabout Albania is its history of reli-gious tolerance, and in 1967 it be-came the first and only constitution-ally atheist country ever to exist.Mother Teresa is the most famousAlbanian, born in Skopje, Macedo-nia, which was once part of Albania.

During World War II Albania wasa safe haven for European Jews.

With a population of 3.3million,30000 Albanians died fighting theNazis, and in Saranda are the re-mains of a 5th century synagogue.

The first night we drove toGjirokastra, a Unesco world

heritage site, known as the City ofStone, a perfectly preserved 13thcentury Ottoman mountain townand the birthplace of Enver Hoxha(pronounced Ho-jah).

Hoxha managed to get electricityacross the country in 15 years. Therest of his accomplishments aremore dubious. There is scant refer-ence to him at the ethnographic mu-seum, which was his home. Thehouse sprawls across multiple levelsand its rooms are airy and large, itswood staircases, ceilings, banistersand balconiesartfully carved.

The medieval castle dominates

the town, and has great panoramicviews over the mountains.

It has an armaments museum,and an American plane captured in1957 at the height of the Cold War. Is-mail Kadare, one of this years No-bel candidates for literature, wasalso born here.

The first night I stayed at theKalemi Hotel, not dissimilar in styleto Hoxhas house. Dinner was at Ku-jtimi, a small hillside restaurantserving local specialities. Try theqifqi, lighter-than-air meatballs.

In the morning, after great coffee,first at the hotel and another one in

the city centre, we headed off toTirana. If you have a penchant forformer communist capitals, stop inTirana for a day or two. Its a mix-

ture of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, possi-bly Istanbul, with a hint of Naples.

The boulevards are wide andleafy. You can see Benito Mussolinisinfluence in the government build-ings dating from when the Italiansoccupied Albania during WorldWarII en route to Greece.

The National Museum has anevocative Socialist Realist mosaic onthe outside, and the NationalGallery, a prime example of early1960s architecture, is full of Alban-ian communist era art, which isworth seeing. Due to lack of invest-ment, there is very little upkeep.

The Block is the happening spot.This is where Hoxha and his crewexercised their power and duringthat time only government officialswere allowed here. It is now full oftrendy bars and restaurants.

This is a coffee-crazy cultureandevery leading Italian brand is avail-able, but Lori Caffe is Albanian. Ihad my first one at JuveniljaCastelo, right near the forest of love.In communist times young couples

would head to the woodlands; peopleuse its hilly paths as a place to jog orrun as they did in the past.

Boutique hotels have started tomake an appearance in the city. Istayed at the Sokrat, located rightnear The Block. It is clean, efficient,with great apricot jam-filled cronuts(croissant-doughnuts) for breakfast,and excellent, strong iced latte, butits not one of the boutique hotels. Itwas standard, no lifts and lots ofstairs, but staff are friendly, helpfuland accommodating, which makesup for the gaping holes. When itcomes to the service industry, thereis a long way to go.

Two hours from Tirana, atDhermi, is a 12th century monasterywith magnificent frescoes of icons.Shen Meria is worth a stop as youdrive along to the coast.

A further two hours over the

mountains, the sapphire-blue wa-ters turn a pale azure where theAdriatic meets the Ionian sea, andwhere swaying palms, isolated rockycoves and inlets dot the coast.

The beaches from Saranda toVlore offer the best of the AlbanianRiviera, a combination of Greece,Italy and the south of France, andevery bit as beautiful. One of myfavourites was Llaman. Its small,quieter and classier than thetrendier Dhermi resort, if you ig-nore that giant plastic sea creatureparked between the beach loungers.

Eating is a big part ofthe cultureand there are great bars and

restaurants to sit and watch theworld go by, and as we spent a weekin Albania we travelled to severaldifferent beaches, including Ksamil.

While the natural landscape isundeniably beautiful, the towns lacksophistication. However, the hillsand mountains provide a fabulousbackdrop and the sea is an incredi-ble blue, as well as being warm,cleanand picturesque.

There are so many extraordinarybeaches, coves, and islets but oneoutstanding discovery was Pema eThate. We found a secluded part ofthe sandy beach with clear, warmblue water, far away from the music

and the inevitable screaming of chil-dren on holiday. You could stare forhours at the islands and water thatdrifts off to thehorizon.

We stayed at the family-run HotelVilla Park Bujani in Ksamil village.Its clean and popular, and the fam-ily is as accommodating and sweetas can be. The plumbing is still a bitStalinistic, as isthe dcor and localarchitecture.

About a 10-minute drive away isButrint National Park, an amaz-ingly preserved ancient town andanother Unesco site. It is quite as-tounding to think that Julius Caesararrived in 44BC and Virgil gave an

account of it in his epic poem, TheAeneid. They say about Albania thatevery 1.5km there is a historical site,and its sad to think that so muchgets looted.

We barely touched all there is todo, and that includes visiting the Al-banian Alps, going white-water raft-ing, horseback riding, and hiking.

For food lovers its good to know fes-tivals are starting to proliferate.

I travelled with Past & Present,(www.pastandpresent.al), who offerbespoke trips. The company manag-ing director Dritan Xhengos forte isarranging political tours, which pro-vide an insight into this fascinatingdestination on the rise.

The tourism industry in this country is not yet refined, but it is definitely worth a visit, writes H

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Despite years of Communist rule and the declaration of the country as atheist, religion still thrives.

Because development was severely limited under Communist rule, Albania is still unspoiled.

Rolling, hills, quaint villages... Albania is waiting to be discovered.