Welcome to travels with Todd

Shortly after arriving in Tirana, I learned this early lesson about buses in Albania: Places described as bus stations can be more like a simple bus stop. I ended the previous post with this photo taken outside the airport

from the bus I’d ride into the city. This photo shows the city terminus – little more than a parking lane on the street.

The Luna bus is, as far as I could determine, presently the only mass transport option between the airport and the city center. It’s privately run and, though I’d purchased my ticket in advance, I also learned a second lesson about traveling by bus in Albania. The operators are happy to take your payment on board by card or cash in euros or lekë – the local currency.

I don’t know if it was a particularly busy day for traffic or road construction but a ride that should need 45-50 minutes took nearly two hours. Happily, there was an incident in front of me that had me quietly keaking. The city is generally southeast of the airport and the late afternoon sun heated the right side of the bus. A man sitting two rows in front of me tugged on the cloth curtain to shade the window. The people in front of me wanted to look at the scenery and would quickly reopen the curtain. This close – open dispute went through several iterations before the folks closest to me pointed out that the man was pulling their curtain and he had one of his own. Sometimes it’s the little things that bring a smile.

Fortunately, as you can see from the Google Maps screenshot, the “station” was quite close to my hotel which were both centrally located.

When you’re alone

Admittedly, while I was alone, life wasn’t making me lonely and if it had been, I was already downtown. Thus, after checking-in to the hotel I set about to explore the immediate area having learned yet another lesson and about to learn a third.

The day’s second lesson had to do with the hotel. Today was Friday. Saturday evening I’d be joining a group for a week and we’d embark on Sunday. I’d booked an extra night in the hotel chosen by Intrepid – the tour operator. I thought this was sensible because I wouldn’t have to relocate after a single night, I’d get to meet the rest of the group, and I’d expected Intrepid had vetted the hotel. The first two reasons worked at least somewhat as I’d anticipated. The third contained the lesson.

The hotel was small and family owned – an aspect of Albanian tourism I’ll discuss in more depth later in this journal. Additionally, it fits with my preference to try to support local businesses when I travel. The room itself was acceptable

even if the cutely folded towels didn’t offset the unappealing view –

something that mattered little since I wouldn’t be in the room to do more than shower and sleep. What I found unacceptable was the frowsy odor enveloping the bathroom. Before asking to change rooms, I opened the window hoping to dissipate the fustiness. (There will be another problem on our group’s return and I learned from some nonspecific comments that other people in the Intrepid group found the accommodations subpar.) The fact that I’d added two nights in the hotel for my additional time in Tirana after the group tour added to my disquietude.

Anticipating that I’d be in this area for several nights at either end of the group tour, I set out to connoiter the area. (I’ve never understood why connoiter is considered nonstandard but reconnoiter is. The root of reconnoiter is from the same Latin source – recognoscere meaning to know again – that gave English the word recognize. Certainly we English speakers can cognize something before we re-cognize it. The same should be true for connoiter. I’d never been to Tirana so I couldn’t truly re-connoiter it.)

Not only did I want to get a general feel for the center of Tirana but I wanted to find an ATM, a convenience store, and a place to have supper. Here’s why:

In Tirana, like most urban places in Europe, you can use a debit or even a credit card for even the smallest purchases. However, this isn’t always the case in more rural areas so it was important to stock up on some lekë.

We’d been warned that we shouldn’t consider tap water potable. It was easy to find push cart vendors on the main streets near the hotel but they charged considerably more than the Big Market store I found on Rruga e Barrikadave. In addition to that, there was no tea service in the room (or coffee for that matter) so the Big Market was also a place I could snap up a late night snack and beverage.

As for the third item, it was late afternoon and I’d had little to eat. Thus, this last imperative. It was far too early for supper so I walked a bit in the area hoping to feel a bit of the pulse of the city. On the bus ride from the airport, I’d noticed some interesting buildings – all under construction. Here’s one.

On my tour tomorrow I’ll learn that this isn’t the best way to look at this building. Viewed properly, it’s beyond interesting. If you look at the image from Google Maps above, you can’t miss the big square named for Albania’s national hero Gjergj Kastrioti who’s commonly called Skanderbeg. I’ll cover him in detail in subsequent posts because you can’t begin to understand Albania until you know at least a little about Skanderbeg. For now, picture yourself looking at this large statue of him

in his eponymous square. This is the appropriate place to view the building above and you’ll see why when I write about my morning walking tour.

I walked to one of the bridges that cross the Lana River and as I took some pictures, I learned my third lesson of the day: When you buy a 200 euro Kodak camera, you get a 200 euro Kodak camera.

This is the edited version of a picture of the Et’hem Bej Mosque I took on my walking tour Saturday morning.

This is the unedited version and the image I saw through the viewfinder.

That dark semicircle would float with the lens regardless of the camera’s orientation. Needless to say, it created a photographic challenge for the rest of the trip.

For dinner I stepped into a small restaurant called Rozafa Tuna where I had the grilled tuna and a Greek salad. In Albania, a Greek salad seems to be more or less the same as a mixed salad but with the addition of feta. I’d read that most of the produce is locally sourced and the tomatoes were among the best I’ve had anywhere. I also had my first Korça – a local beer that I’ll drink far too much of in the coming weeks.

Of course, since I’d passed several gelato / ice cream sellers in my perambulation of the area I rounded off my meal with pomegranate gelato – a flavor I’d never seen elsewhere. I thought it was spectacular and it gave me something to look forward to having tomorrow night.

It was likely some combination of travel, walking, a big meal, the beer, and gelato that had me feeling a bit hebetudinous when, on my way back to the hotel, I stepped into a bank lobby to use the ATM and mistakenly accepted the bank’s conversion ignoring a lesson I’d learned from my time in Lisbon.

There’s an emerging trend when using credit or debit cards for banks and vendors to offer to charge you in the local currency or that of your home country. You should always choose your home country’s currency and the reason seems logical to me. Which bank is likely to give you a better exchange rate and lower fees  – one you do business with regularly or one with which you have no relationship? This night I made the wrong choice. It’s a mistake I wouldn’t repeat.