Shqiperise (which is Albanian for Albania) - Tirana, Albania
3 Stars This place was Average visited Jan 9, 2006
Tirana from the air is very odd. It's in a large flat valley, with a dramatic backdrop of snow capped mountains. It's hard to tell where the city starts, because as far as you can see, there are buildings dotted over the fields. While driving around we noticed the same thing - there isn't any real country there at all, just endless houses and buildings, mostly three storey and brightly coloured, each surrounded by a few fields and haystacks. The overall impression is of endlessly sprawling sparse suburbs, with fields instead of gardens. On the ground you can see the amazing building boom they seem to be having. Every second house seems to be only half finished, and even those that are obviously being lived in often have flat roofs with metal rods sticking out waiting for the next storey to go on. More evidence of the flurry of boom Albania is in is the state of half of their roads. Half of them have been dug up to be re-done, even in Tirana, leaving cars, buses, pedestrians all bumping over rocky lumps and potholes in the choking dust. Oh, and the other half of the roads are just like that normally of course. This probably explains the car wash phenomenon. The first word of Albanian I learnt after getting off the plane was "Lavazh" which means car wash. Along the road into town from the airport there seemed to be signs for them about every 5 metres, most of them not much more than a guy with a hose and bucket, I think!