Durres - Shen Osman Kthupit, Albania
3 Stars This place was Average visited Jan 10, 2006
Durres doesn't seem to be marked on this map, which is odd, as it is one of Tirana's major cities, was the capital for the first half of last century and (probably because of that) is the hub of the train system. I've emailed travelpost to ask if it can be added! On the second day we wanted to take a minibus (furgon which is the same as a turkish dolmus) to Kruja, a mountain town with a castle where Skenderbeg, the national hero, once defeated the Ottomans. We wandered around the terrible crossroads that passes for a bus station for an hour or more looking for the right furgon. They are building an overpass there, so the whole area is a great big building site, and the furgons themselves have no signs, it seems you just have to know, or understand what the drivers or 'conductors' are yellling at you as pass. We did finally find an empty minibus with a driver who offered to take us to Kruja for 10 times what we expected - he wanted to play taxi, and take the two of us in an empty van. We didn't want that, so walked away and jumped on the next bus we saw to Durres, which was the capital of Albania for centuries. It was after lunch by then, and the trip took an hour over rough roads in a bone rattling bus, but the couple of hours of sunlight we had in Durres was about the right length of time to explore! We saw the Adriatic and a cluster of mushroom bunkers watching it, a few stretches of Byzantine wall, the modern town mosque (which replaced a historic one that fell down, apparently) and the Roman amphitheatre. We were peering through the fence around the amphitheatre when an old guy came and let us and sort of showed us around - the language barrier was interesting, as was his ability to mountain-goat all over th place while we struggled behind. The highlights were the mosaics that were part of the chapel there, but you could only see them by craning through two sets of iron bars around a corner. A pleasant town for a few hours, but we felt that was enough and found a bus to get back to Tirana.