Tirana

June 21 Tirana and bus to Ohrid, Macedonia

Our day began with breakfast at the hotel, visiting a new orthodox basilica, and then finding bus tickets to Struga, Macedonia at a travel agency suggested by our hotel workers located in the main square. The bus wasn't leaving until 4 PM, so we had time to explore the city's main sites. First, we took photos with the huge Skanderburg statue, a statue from communism, went into a mosque that was not destroyed during communism, and then the history museum. The museum covered everything including the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Illyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Skanderburg's resistance to the Ottomans, the Ottomans, the fight for independence and World War I, World War II and the rise of communism, and finally the terrors of communism. They had a stamp collection and Mother Theresa exhibit on the way out to lighten the mood somewhat.

We were tired and hungry after all the history, so we consumed sandwiches beside the old Justinian castle walls before visiting the free National Art Museum. It featured art starting from the era of King Zog, and continued with communist painters and then onto blatant massive propaganda communist paintings from the 1960s to the '80s. Finally there was an exhibit about Albania city planning and ideas from the past and present.

Exiting the museum, we walked to an old cobblestone bridge and then over to the city's central street to see the crumbling pyramid from Hoxer's communist days, the parliament building, and a newish exhibit in a park close to where Hoxer and other communist officials lived. In it is a donated piece of the Berlin Wall, a portion of tunnel from an Albanian work camp, and an in situ concrete bunker that guarded this area of communist era Tirana.

We saw more bunkers in the park as we rambled once again through the Blloko neighborhood. We bought ice cream, then picked up our bags at our hotel before heading back to the travel agency to get our bus.

The bus ride from Tirana to Struga was circuitous moving west before going east stopping to pick travelers up in Durres. However, the ride was beautiful and windy climbing over mountain passes and running along a river that Darren kept comparing to the Russian River. We also had fun spotting enormously tall hay bails and the ubiquitous Albanian concrete bunkers. We saw our largest grouping of the latter just before the top of the pass before the Macedonian border.

I always tend to worry when crossing borders, just because officials can be crotchety and there is the possibility that the process can take a long time, but everything was fine and we gained new passport stamps. Immediately we descended into a forest, new construction houses, and not too long after we were dropped off on the side of the road and pointed in the direction of Struga, kind of in the Albanian style. Darren and I found a taxi in town and took it fifteen minutes high up some cobblestone streets--this seems to be a reoccurring theme--to our place in Ohrid. And, once again, we were introduced by our house hosts to a great apartment with a terrace with a great view of the city, and this time also over the massive Lake Ohrid.

We settled in and walked two minutes down our hill to town for a pizza supper, Eurocup soccer, and a stroll along the lake and along the shopping pedestrian street. I was tired from all our four plus hour bus ride and it was past 11PM, so we returned to sleep after another busy day.