Albania

Paste Magazine : 4 Reasons to Visit Albania

albania — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 15:54:47 +0000

Whether the idea of visiting Croatia began with a love of Game of Thrones or by stumbling across photo after photo of the breathtaking, island-studded Adriatic coast, the Balkans have become a regularly featured region to counter traditional European destinations. Croatia’s surrounding neighbors and their cities like Kotor Bay in Montenegro and Mostar in Bosnia have also garnered the attention of travelers. While the entire region is beautiful and culturally rich, it’s about time for Albania’s turn in the spotlight. Apart from their historical influence on Albania, there are plenty of reasons this country’s coast has become a vacation spot for Italians, but we’ll start with these four:

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The New York Times: The City Poised to Become Europe’s Next Affordable Creative Haven

albania — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 07:17:31 +0000

Over the past five years, Albania has been discovered by travelers as that rare thing: a largely unexplored corner of Europe (one with some 265 miles of coastline). The small Balkan country sits just across the Adriatic and Ionian seas from Italy’s heel and a mere 45-minute ferry ride away from the Greek island of Corfu. It’s recently gotten its first high-end waterside resorts, and as the beach town of Sarande and the seaside city of Vlore have become more comfortable, so too has Tirana — the country’s capital, about 22 miles inland with a population of over half a million — grown more cosmopolitan, with new restaurants, shops and galleries joining the almost surrealist pastiche of testaments to the city’s past.For a good example of the way eras collide in Tirana, just visit Skanderbeg Square, recently renovated with new fountains and rosy granite paving, and home to an 18th-century mosque and minaret, a domed Albanian Orthodox church opened in 2012, a set of government buildings that echo the fascist architecture of Mussolini’s Italy and a Brutalist monolith that houses the National Historical Museum.

Initially settled by Illyrian and Greek tribes during ancient times, Albania spent over four centuries as part of the Ottoman Empire. After 1912, it became a fascist-leaning monarchy, and then, in the wake of World War II, a Communist state ruled by the infamous dictator Enver Hoxha. In 1991, a full year behind many of its Eastern Bloc neighbors, the country saw its first democratic elections, as well as murmurings of a cultural awakening. Tirana may not have a robust avant-garde scene, but it does have a gritty, iconoclastic edge — the Pyramid, a large monument to Hoxha in the center of town, is now popular with skateboarders — and a joie de vivre that’s enticed many former expats. “There’s so much potential,” says Flori Uka, a local winemaker who trained in northeastern Italy and now specializes in vintages made from organic Kallmet grapes grown just outside the city. “We were isolated for so long, but today it’s possible for creative people to do what they love. The place has become very receptive to the new.”

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The Telegraph: Albania, Why it’s time to put this ancient country on your holiday wish-list

albania — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 14:27:04 +0000

We walk up the slope, away from the water, past the coffee-shop tables on the pavements of Epidamn Boulevard. Then we turn left onto Rruga Kalase, and a hot day in 21st-century Albania melts, to be replaced by the second century and the Roman Empire in its pomp.

Hemmed in by a scattershot of modern homes, but unmistakable in its majesty, Durres Amphitheatre could, without a huge leap in imagination, still ring with the sword-clash of gladiatorial combat, seats rearing tall above the arena floor. Carolyn Perry grins like the mother of a school sports day winner. “You weren’t expecting that, were you?” she beams.

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The Guardian: On the trail of the unexpected – a road trip around Albania

albania — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 14:20:32 +0000

Was it a wolf? As our car swung round yet another tight bend deep in the Albanian countryside, a gangly, shaggy creature watched from the edge. No doubt it was, as we had just left a nature reserve where a panel on local fauna portrayed an identical Canis lupus. Nor was it to be the only unexpected experience in the land of Zog (Albania’s only king, in the 1920s and 30s) which, under the repressive dictator Enver Hoxha, was hermetically sealed apart from the rest of Europe until the 1990s.

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The Washington Post : In Albania, age-old traditions and Mediterranean beaches

albania — Sun, 18 Aug 2019 14:08:29 +0000

As the crow flies — and Google Maps authoritatively confirmed — the coast was just a matter of miles away. An easy drive and we’d be lolling in the Mediterranean. Instead the car lurched along dirt roads, stopping for the odd goat or donkey cart, our driver chuckling at our surprised reactions in the rearview mirror.

Suddenly the temperatures plummeted as we began an ascent into mist-wrapped mountains, a conifer-clad peak thrusting its nose into the clouds. Hello, Google Maps?! The car slowed to a crawl, passing beekeepers selling jars of honey from the side of the road. And then we broke through the swirling, rain-dense clouds and spied the sea glittering far below. Gesturing triumphantly, the driver brought the car to a screeching halt at the scenic overlook. We sprang out to drink it in.

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My Experience

albania — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:37:06 +0000

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Forest experience

albania — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:35:59 +0000

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Jason Andrews

albania — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:02:31 +0000

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We’ll have you feeling like a million bucks.

albania — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:02:26 +0000

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Diving

albania — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 10:23:05 +0000

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