For this leg, we booked another private transfer. Otherwise, the journey would have involved two buses and a border.

When we booked, the journey time was estimated at 2 hours 45. We thought it would take at least 3 hours. Yesterday, it took 4 hours and 20...

We hit a lot of snags. After travelling a while up the hills behind Bar, we found the road blocked by police and ambulance vehicles attending a previous accident. So we had to backtrack almost as far as Bar to circumvent the stoppage. We were delayed quite a while at the border (although the driver said he'd seen much worse). And then, nearer Tirana, we hit very heavy, very slow traffic.

This knocked all the necessary jobs -- getting money, shopping, sorting -- further into the evening than we would have liked.

Still, we're in Albania! This trip's fourth new country.

Scenes from the road:





Our accommodation is rather curious. The stairs in the block are distinctly tatty, but the apartment itself is very chic. It has a certain fridge-like quality, though, so that it feels colder inside than outside, and although we have a hall, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a balcony, we have no sitting-room... Terns Make Do, however. Whatever the quirks of the accommodation, we adapt.






We got off to a slow start this morning. But we had an interesting walk:




Tirana is clearly into interesting building design, whether traditional or modern, and a lot of construction is under way:





Definitely worth visiting is the Pyramid of Tirana. Originally designed by Enver Hoxha's daughter and her husband, this construction has had a chequered past. But the whacky architecture is interesting, and the views from the top are great:






A little further on, you come across the Postblloku, or Checkpoint. This is the Memorial to Communist Isolation, and there's a good description here: "Co-created by the former dissident Fatos Lubonja and the artist Ardian Isufi, the monument is made up of three main elements, including one of the small concrete defensive bunkers that continue to litter the country, several concrete supports from the mine at the notorious Spac labour camp where thousands of political prisoners suffered between 1968 and 1990, and a brightly painted section of the Berlin Wall from Postdamer Platz that once split Germany in two."



Random observations about Tirana:

1. The language is completely, completely unfamiliar... I didn't understand the language in the former Yugoslav countries we've been travelling through (Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are variants of what is essentially the same language), but the kinship with Russian was often helpful. Albanian's closest relative is Greek, of which I know next to nothing.

2. The traffic is hooty. Hootier than any of the cities we've been in so far. But there's still that respect for pedestrians that we've been grateful for all along the way in Europe.

3. There's a small-trader vibe. In our neighbourhood, there are lots of little stores selling groceries, fruit, and vegetables. And as we've walked around town, we've seen a number of individuals selling small amounts of wares -- oranges, spinach, etc.

4. There are gazillions of cafes... Coffee is a really huge deal here. And we're back in a culture where coffee is served with food, and where smokers are segregated from non-smokers. Double-yay!



5. There are lots of those offset exterior blinds that I don't think we've seen since Greece...


So, it's all very different and therefore fascinating, and we're looking forward to exploring more.