My wife is a saint. Not only do I drag her to all these crazy countries, I also subject her to a lot of uncomfy situations. And she is such a good sport about it all. Take this morning: I have a thing for trains. I love experiencing public transit and national railway systems in countries I visit. There isn't much left to Albania's rail network and what does remain is perhaps worse than India's. (We've trained it in India and concluded nothing could be worse!) Well, today we found worse. Lonely Planet warned us that Albania's trains are "decrepit at best". They weren't being too harsh in that assessment.
The rail station in the capital, Tirana, was closed back in May. Now, the train from Durres on the coast only goes as far as the town of Kashar, 12km from the centre of Tirana. We could have taken a taxi from Durres and made the journey in an hour. But that would have been no fun. So here is what we did:
A. 7:45am - cabbed it from the hotel to the train station.
B. 8:25am - Albanian Railways from Durres to Kashar.
C. 9:35am - bus from Kashar to Skanderbeg Square.
D. 10:00am - taxi from Skanderbeg Square to Sheraton.
All that to feed my train interest! Now can you see why I say that Pam is a saint?
The train journey was, however, fascinating. And Pam agrees. We stood the whole time during the trip because the seats looked too disgusting. But we had an entire car to ourselves, since no one takes the train! And the fare? 75 cents Canadian each!
Here are a few sights from the train journey...
Preparing to board. Several windows in every car were smashed, that's how bad it was!
We had the entire car -- not just this cabin -- to ourselves!
When we got on the bus in Kashar, we caused quite a stir, because we only had 2000 Leke ($20) notes and a couple Euro coins. We couldn't pay the 50 Leke (50 cents) fare in Lekes and that was a no-no. In the end, the ticket-taker accepted a 1 euro coin and felt like he was on the winning side of things.
Our hotel here in Tirana is the Sheraton. Quite posh indeed, and they upgraded us to a huge room to boot. We set out around 10:30am in the blazing heat to see the key sights. Here are the highlights...
T-Mobile has erected this "world stage" a couple of blocks from our hotel and there was a heavy metal or grunge -- I dunno what's what anymore -- deafening concert that rattled our tranquility until midnight.
The former residence of the dictator, Enver Hoxha
This decaying monstrosity is called The Pyramid. The dictator's daughter and son-in-law built it in 1988 as a museum to him. After communism fell, it became a night club and is now, well, you can see..
The National Art Gallery had a lot of socialist propaganda art, which was interesting to view. This one is called, "Declaring the Republic".
This section of wall is all that is left of the Byzantine-era castle.
A massive mosque is being built in the Center of town. You really notice the absence of religious buildings, as almost all were demolished in the Athiestic Campaign of the 1960s.
Lots of new construction is underway in the city centre, including some very appealing architectural designs.
This is the Statue of the Unknown Partisan
The beautiful ceiling of the Et'hem Bet Mosque, which the Communists spared from destruction in the Athiest Campaign.
The Clock Tower was restored by the Americans about 10 years ago
Skanderbeg Square is the hub of the city. Enver Hoxha's statue was pulled down here in 1991 with great gusto by the people
The Palace of Culture, built by the Russians in the 1960s
The Museum of History was like a sauna. So we raced through. It has a disturbing section on communist atrocities.
No comments:
Post a Comment