Tirana

 Still trying to wrap my head around Albania’s capitol city and all I learned about the country’s history during a walking tour here today. As with every other stop I’ve made on this trip, it has been SO educational, overflowing with history and context that is new to me. A really inspiring type of travel. 

Tirana is not picturesque, but it is very interesting. Concrete bunkers from the years of brutal communism are now museums or makeshift toilets. Immensely tall, half-finished buildings dot the skyline, and the sound of construction has been fairly constant. Strange, eclectic and colorful architecture abounds. 

In this picture you can see a mosque and its minarets, a clocktower behind it, one of those buildings under construction behind that, and one of those aforementioned colorful buildings to the right. What you can’t see is that, from where I was standing, there was an enormous Ferris wheel to my right and, to my left, a statue of the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg (who successfully fought the 15th century Ottoman Empire invasion of this area for two decades…until he died and the Turks settled in for a comfy 500 years or so). Just LOTS going on in Tirana.