Today we take our last dip in the sea and in the afternoon we move on to Tirana, the capital of Albania.
Tirana
We wake up around eight and after breakfast we start our routine, when we need to pack everything. Around 9:30 we leave the apartment for good. As for the beach, we play it safe and choose the main beach at Rruga Murat Tërbaçi Boulevard. We pay for sunbeds and spend the whole morning lying there and swimming in the sea.
Vlore - Last selfie stick entry
Vlore
In the afternoon we slowly make our way to Tirana. We leave our selfie stick on the sun umbrella, which we will remember only in Macedonia. We have lunch on the way to the bus. This we realize in what I would call a grill bar called SUFLLAQE - Vëllezërit Zeneli - Skelë, where I had a grilled skewer and it was my second best meal in Albania. The restaurant or rather the buffet is located in the passage at the beginning of Rruga Murat Tërbaçi Avenue.
After a tasty lunch, we get on a city bus and get a ride to the long-distance bus line. There is no such thing as a bus terminal here, and to find the right bus stop it is best to use Maps.cz, where it is faithfully marked. You can only tell that it is a marshalling yard or a bus station by the vans standing there. Otherwise, it's in the middle of the park near the Independence Monument. The park wasn't in the best shape as it was under renovation, so normally you wouldn't even pass here if it weren't for the need to travel out of town. There was a problem where demand outstripped supply, but they eventually added a second van and we all fit in to our satisfaction.
Vlore - Bus terminal
Vlore - Independence Monument
The road to Tirana was quite uneventful until Durres, where the driver left the highway and drove along the district road, when he stopped and dug into the engine, so we were afraid we would not even finish. Fortunately it was not critical and we reached our destination. Our accommodation in Tirana is close to the centre, strategically close to the international bus station. Even as old farts, we are already using the local public transport with experience. The ticketing is fascinating. There is a vendor walking around the bus selling tickets. No sooner does he put them in your hand than the ticket inspector standing right behind him takes them from you to check them and tear them up as marked. Overemployment in practice.
We stayed at the Albania hostel, which was a bit of a price/performance/location compromise. Neither good nor bad, but sufficient for one night. There was an ex 50 year old hippie sitting at the reception desk, and the whole hostel looked a bit dated, but it had working air conditioning and a fairly clean bathroom, we didn't need more for this night. We don't even bother unpacking too much and go straight to explore the city, or rather the centre. The centre is like a big roundabout. It's shaped like a rectangle, but it's one-way all the way around. It's where the various avenues from all over the city centre converge. We lived near one of them on Rruga e Kavajës, so we walked to the centre along this street. The central Skanderbeg Square is probably the ugliest I've ever seen. One big potholed area and a couple of high rises scattered around, it really sucks.
Tirana - Skanderbeg's Square
I recommend going to the Edhem Bey Mosque, behind it is a park, next to which there are some architecturally interesting buildings.
Tirana - Edhem Bey Mosque
We walk past a modern shopping centre and find ourselves on the pedestrianised Shëtitorja Murat Toptani Street by the Tirana Castle, which doesn't look much like a castle, but something like a wall stands here.
Tirana - Shopping Mall
Tirana - Ulice Shëtitorja Murat Toptani
The last item on the agenda is to implement a dinner at the Kolonat fast food chain. It is an Albanian copy of McDonald's, which is so bizarre that it is one of the attractions in Tirana. By the way, Albania is one of the countries where there is not a single branch of this global chain. However, finding Kolonat was in the end harder than it seemed at first sight. Around the center, google maps showed me two branches. So we headed to the first one near Dëshmorët e Kombit Avenue. Which goes past the Albanian pyramid, which is the local cultural centre. We somehow pass it unnoticed. But on the way we come across Hodge's bunker by the park at the intersection with Rruga Ismail Qemali Street.
Tirana - Boulevard Dëshmorët e Kombit
Tirana - Hodge's bunker
Kolonat should be somewhere behind the park, but it's not, we wander around and nothing. After ten minutes of fruitless searching I give up and enter the second branch into the map, which is basically on the other side of the wider centre on Rruga e Barrikadave, so we head there. We take it around the central square and come across the Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ. We reach our destination and of course find nothing.
Tirana - Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ
With that, I give up the hunt for Kolonat and we go to eat at the nearest restaurant we come across. We find a suitable restaurant at the central roundabout, where I have my last pizza. We sit outside in the garden and the wait for food is made more interesting by a begging brat, whom I quickly shoo away, but the girls at the next table ignore him and he barks aggressively at them, "Yes or no", they reply, "no", all shocked, and the brat goes off to do his business elsewhere. Although some are shocked by this scene, it doesn't take away our appetite.
After dinner we return home and not far from our restaurant we come across another fast food bizarro in the form of Tirana Fried Chicken.
On the way we buy breakfast and snacks for tomorrow's journey and go back to the hostel. Ala and Patrick are still looking for views, so they separate from us. But then they find out that they don't know where our hostel is and as a bonus their cell phones are dead, so they don't even call us for help. However, they somehow find it with the help of the locals and we have another funny story to tell at their expense. After this story, we are going to bed because we are up early tomorrow morning and have a long drive to Skopje, Macedonia.
Užitečné odkazy:
Restaurant SUFLLAQE
The Place apartment
Other accommodation in Vlore
Hostel Albania
Other accommodation in Tirana
