When I first started this blog, it was purely to have a place where I could upload all of my travel photos from different places into big posts where they could just be scrolled through. As I was just looking through my posts from the last few weeks, I realised that recently I'd really neglected that side of my blog! So here's a quite overdue photo diary full of snaps I took when I visited Albania for 10 days in March.
Some of you may know, I was in Albania not for a holiday but to work with kids over there with seven other people from my college. Due to child protection issues I won't be posting photos of those activities on here but if anyone wants to know more about what our team did, feel free to ask! :)
On our days off, we did get to explore some of the country, so that's mostly what I'll be showing here. I found that Albania was very much a mishmash of other cultures: we saw what was definitely a European country, but had such a heavy Middle Eastern influence. The food and architecture seemed to be some sort of combination of Turkish, Greek and a bit of Italian (especially in the more rural areas on the Western side of the country). A lot of their views are also still very 'conservative' - for example, if a man told me (or any other woman) to do something in public whilst we were there, I had to do it (which you know, would completely go against my character, so it was quite hard to keep up with!). Anyway, let's get started -
Tirana:
Tirana is the capital city of Albania, and the place where we stayed and spent the most of our time in the city. This was probably the place where I saw the most eastern influence - from the cafés there, to the huge mosque in the centre of the city which had a call to prayer multiple times each day!
 |
| fun fact: many ladies in Tirana were hired to keep the roads of the city tidy. sounds like a simple enough job, right? one catch though: every day when they started work, rather than taking a shop bought broom or brush with them, they had to gather sticks, branches and leaves in order to make their own brush to sweep the streets with. |
Mt. Dajti:
Dajti is a mountain just outside the centre of Tirana. On one of our free days, we had the chance to go up it on a rather wobbly cable car (which, despite it being 5292 feet high, wasn't actually as terrifying as it sounds!). We saw some amazing views both from the car and the revolving bar at the top of the mountain.
Lezhë and Shëngjin:
Lezhë is a northern province of Albania that we visited just for a day, and worked with some kids for a couple of hours in the nearby town of Shëngjin. Although we weren't there for long, we did manage to walk (most of the way) up to the castle in Lezhë, where we encountered even more amazing views -
 |
| So I'll be honest - I hated the traditional Albanian food we tried. most of the stuff we were given at lunchtimes were potato filled orangey sauces with the oil still floating on the top - not nice! However, some of the fast food was amazing, including these suflaq's (I also found these in Rhodes but called gyros instead!). They're essentially kebabs on flatbread, with pork strips, a big dollop of Greek yoghurt and a handful of skinny chips! |
Krujë:
We visited Krujë on our final day in Albania before our 9pm flight, and this was definitely my favourite place by far. Krujë is a little village high in the mountains of western/central Albania, and is popular with tourists. This was definitely the part of Albania that felt the most Italian to me (probably also the reason that it was my favourite - big up the motherland!). So after driving up and up winding mountain streets to the bottom of the town, we then walked through gorgeous, narrow Greek-esque cobbled streets that were surrounded by little shops and stalls on all sides. I bought a beautiful hand crafted ring from one of the stalls on the way back down to our minibus after successfully bartering down the price! It was a bit daunting though in a way, as every shopkeeper tried to call you over and that did make me a bit nervous. Before all the shops though, we walked up to the top and had a gorgeous meal overlooking the peaks of the mountains on one side and the valleys on the other. Me being how I am, I spied a tiny dirt pathway winding down from the restaurant and round a corner and of course had to know what was round there, so as soon as I'd finished eating, off I went - and the view of the mountains I found there was the most breathtaking experience of the whole trip. I've gushed enough about Krujë though - here's the photos!
 |
| did I mention how many stray cats there were in Albania? I just wanted to take them all home with me |
 |
| and here it is - the AMAZING view! |
 |
| we then took a little trip to the museum! |
 |
| view from the viewing deck at the top of Krujë museum |
So that rounds up the sightseeing chunk of my Albania trip. Hopefully soon I'll get around to blogging my Rhodes photos, and this time not four months after I've visited!
Have any of you ever visited Albania or the Balkans area in general? Let me know!
No comments:
Post a Comment