Public Transport Albania Style

To get to Tirana, we left Spacegrazer tied up at the port in Durrës. Early in the morning we set off for the bus station. Pretty soon we were lost so we asked a passer-by for directions. He kindly walked us all the way there as it was hard to find from where we were. After our chaperone had warned us not to pay more than a certain amount per person for the bus ride, he went on his way.

We ended up going in a furgon. They are Mercedes mini buses, and the driver just takes off when he has sold enough tickets to fill up his bus. The furgon brought us to the edge of Tirana, where we embarked the local bus to the centre. The bus was full, but people got up for us so the kids could sit down. I don’t think that has ever happened to us before! When Max told Beau to give up his seat for an elderly man, a nice lady promptly lifted Beau onto her lap.

City of Contrasts

Like Durrës, we found Tirana an interesting mix of old and new, east and west, ugly and beautiful. We saw the concrete pyramid that used to be a communist headquarters. It has been trashed and abandoned and left that way, with broken glass everywhere. We saw imposing buildings with severe-looking helmeted statues on them. We saw mosques. We saw graffiti. We saw one of the many bunkers that were built all over Albania in the time of dictator Hoxa – he imagined imminent invasions from all directions. It is now the entrance to an underground modern art gallery. The kids enjoyed clambering on the giant letters spelling I Love Tirana.

Back on the bus to Durrës. The bus was overfull, so the kids were once again lifted up and placed on laps. The people around us were concerned that the bus driver would charge us too much, with us being obvious tourists. When it came time to pay our fare, a lively discussion erupted, after which we felt pretty confident that the conductor charged us fairly.

Bye bye Albania

The next day we decided to head off. We had to make place for a 100 metre container ship anyway, and while we could have shifted to a different part of the harbour, we decided that we had had enough of the busy, hot commercial port. We were looking forward to anchoring in a bay again, and being able to jump off the boat into clear water!

I am so glad that we visited Albania, and would have loved to see more. Perhaps another time. I have a feeling that Albania might become a bit of a tourist destination in the future. Give it time, and we can say that we were among the first to discover it haha!!

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Bianca Kindler