First Day Touring

Day 2 Wednesday December 28, 2011 We have some touring today! Hit the breakfast room on the second floor around 8. It’s a buffet and no one in the room except us and a lady behind the bar and one waiter. He asks for our coffee order and indicates we can go to the buffet. It is pretty much the usual selection these days of almost inedible eggs, some type of mystery meat sausage, some pastries, some cheese, lunch meat, a few vegetables, cereals, and yoghurt. We didn’t ask if we could get any cooked special. Somehow we always forget to ask this. My daughter stopped in and took some hard boiled eggs for later. The yoghurt was quite tasty but everything else was just mediocre. Ready to go and down to the lobby to meet Klodi.

 We are traveling to Kruja today. It was an Ethnographic museum, and Scanderbeg Museum, and an old fortress of Kruja plus a bazaar. It is not too far out of town although we have to go back out towards the airport and through all the traffic jams again to get out of town. We get to Kruja and drive through the town and up the sides of a cliff almost. A good part of the town is perched on the hillside and this seems to be the case with most Albanian towns. We park and exit the car to climb further up the hill to get to the former castle. It has been rebuilt into the Scanderbeg Museum. You can still see the castle walls though and later we looked at the former tower and corner points along the walls.

 We had a separate guide for the Ethnographic Museum. We were the only ones there and from the looks of things, no one else had been in a while. It is not exactly tourist season. There were signs that said no photographs but I asked the guide and he said “why not” and let me take photos. How nice. The museum had tools which were used years ago to plow, flatten ground, blacksmith, make hats, distill, and press olives. I especially liked the olive press and it was like a huge screw on both sides that the men would screw down together onto baskets holding the olives that had already been pressed once for the virgin oil. We went into the house then and saw the traditional rooms and furnishings. It was very Muslim in that the men and women were not ever together except in one room of the house, the family room. The women had a room above the men’s room that was hidden and they could look down on the men and the young ladies could see who was chosen for them for marriage. In the men’s room, no women were ever allowed so a young boy was stationed at the door to bring in the food and water and whatever other supplies the men needed. Some of the furnishings were hundreds of years old and some of the home was hundreds of years old as well but other parts have been restored. The kitchen is always interesting. The old mom and dad (parents of the current land worker) would sleep in here because it was the warmest room in the house. Not a bad idea as we discovered later. In Albania, the youngest son is responsible for staying with the parents and taking care of them and taking over the farm/family business.

 After the Ethnographic Museum, we went back into the courtyard below the former castle/now museum to head into the Scanderbeg Museum. In the courtyard were 3 turkeys and a couple of young boys looking after them. I am really getting into the turkey photos here. Hardly ever get to see a live turkey up close in the states. 

Go into the Scanderbeg Museum and only the very first statues in the entry way are photographed. Then I must put away my camera for the rest of the museum. It is a very nice museum and Klodi did quite a good job of telling us about Scanderbeg who is revered as a national hero who helped free Albania from the Ottoman Turks which is ironic since they trained him to be a soldier. He gathered the scattered local chiefs together and got them to fight together against outsiders. All this happened in the mid 1400’s. He is regarded as many as the savior of Christianity in Europe. If he had not stopped the Ottoman Turks in Albania, they would have pushed through to Rome and the Vatican and there wouldn’t be a Roman Catholic Church anymore. There is a statue to him in Tirana and one in Brussels and other European capitals and you can see his helmet everywhere in symbols or you can buy a similar to wear. It was a goat head with the horns on it. Anyway, a good museum with interesting tales of Scanderbeg and then another part of the museum is dedicated to the Communists. We went through that part rather quickly. We did go out on the balcony and take in the view over the city and the valley and were able to take photos out there.

 Now, we have the option to go through the bazaar. While I love bazaars, this one was quite touristy and almost every store seemed to have the same items and same rather kitsy stuff for sale. We did find some rather warm looking knit socks and went into one store to buy some. According to what we had read, we were supposed to bargain for items and it was expected. The lady came up with something like 10 euros a pair of socks each. My daughter found 2 pairs and I was going to bargain but when I started, she turned to Klodi and he chattered away with her and turned to me and said she would only let them go at 18 Euros rather than 20. Sometimes I have found a guide does more harm than good in bargaining. We found a pair of socks outside for 4 Euros We found some great bowls there too but didn’t get any. My husband looked at a coffee grinder but passed it and then we saw the same coffee grinders just about everywhere. There was a lot of pushing of “brandy” and “cognac” – locally made – and apparently they think tourists must love to buy booze. Most shops were the same as everywhere – “come look” “free to look” “I have many things in my shop”, etc. etc. etc. And we walked to the end of the bazaar and had to walk back through it to get to the car. It was not easy walking either as it was all cobblestones. Finally we are finished and hop back into the car to head back into Tirana.

 We get a drive through different parts of Tirana and Klodi tells us of some of the buildings are we are driving. He points out some very traditional Communist buildings. He always says “communist” and it wasn’t until much later in the trip that I realized their dictator was when they had their communist period and they were never actually part of the Soviet Union. Buildings were all the same and all painted a rather dull gun metal gray during the Communist time. When they started moving away from that, people started putting some color onto their buildings and the general populace was so pleased that it became a law that you had to declare the color of your building when you applied to build and it was put into your permit and building plans. You could still paint a building gray but it had to be in the plans and documents. Some of the buildings went a little overboard with the different colors.

 We stopped for dinner at a small restaurant where we ended up with way too much food as we didn't realize Klodi was ordering a meal for each of us. We got some pies which I didn't like. We had a spinach pie off a street store front before and it was good but this one was some odd cheese and nasty to me. Then we each ended up with a huge plate of chicken and rice. There were two men outside walking up and down the street with a turkey in their hands. When we first saw them, I thought they had bought their turkeys and were going home. But we see them pass the other way later but I couldn't get out to take a photo. Klodi says they are trying to sell the two turkeys. Next time they passed, I ran out into the cold but they were walking much faster than my” jump up and go outside”.

 We told Klodi that it was necessary to stop at a fruit market and get some fruits for my daughter. He took us to a nice one that wasn't that far from the hotel and we purchased some strawberries, some grapes, a cauliflower and some pears I think. The strawberries were quite expensive, being about $10 in price for a small container but they were delicious. We got a couple of persimmons for bonus. Klodi was so tickled by my daughter always needing fruit and fresh vegetables that he took to calling her “Fruity Girl” and it kind of stuck the whole trip and we all enjoyed calling her that. He drove back to the hotel and we walked around the square to the Ethem Bey Mosque. He was thinking we might not get inside but it wasn’t a prayer time so we were able to go into the mosque. As we were walking up to the door, a woman and her daughter, who looked almost grown, asked Klodi something but we went into the mosque in front of them. I thought they were just waiting to get into the mosque. There was a room inside the door where you took off your shoes. Looks like men went downstairs then to do their ablutions. We walked to the next door which let us into the mosque. It was quite small actually. It had all the usual mosque things but wasn’t very elaborate as mosques go. I asked if I could take photos and Klodi say “why not” but I did not use a flash as there were people in there worshiping. We didn’t stay long because it wasn’t large and we hoped to see a few other things.

 On the way out, the same woman and girl talked to Klodi for a while. He told us later that he was surprised because they were begging and he said that white people don’t beg and he was asking them how come and why didn’t she get a job and was really giving her the business for begging and not working. According to him, you can always find a job or help from friends and neighbors. They have a gypsy population and they expect begging from them but not from other white people. He did not give her any money. Interesting take on poor people.

 My daughter was not interested in going to the Shijaku House so she went back to the hotel to work out. We hoped into the van and drove around the city a bit to get to this house which is the home of one of their most famous artists who is now in his 80’s I think but still painting. We drove down a small alley and when we weren’t sure where he was going, he drove between the very narrow stone pillars of a gate into what looked like a bar/restaurant courtyard. We all pop out and walk into the bar where he chatters with some people who run off to look for something. We are in the compound of the artist and his son or his family anyway and the house is next door to the bar. We are told to pay our entry fee of 200 Lek per and walk into this fantastic house that is lined from ceiling to floor, almost, with paintings by Shijaku. He has stuck to the same theme many times and some of the paintings are identical except differently sized. He loves to paint cock fights and scarecrows and there are some of Skanderbeg around the walls as well. Definitely a good painter. The house was just as interesting with a large fireplace and stairs up the back wall on both sides and then a balcony around the second floor with rooms but all the doors were closed. Klodi said the man is still painting as there was an easel and a wet canvas sitting on it with a palette under it. And there were several new paintings that Klodi recognized as being new from his last visit. We could not take any photos though. 

Didn’t get back to the hotel though before we got hit in the rear. Klodi jumps out and goes to look. We saw the next day that there was only a small ding on the fender. The other driver didn’t have insurance and says sorry a lot but Klodi says “what are you going to do” apparently he has had as many as 30 dings in a couple of months to be repaired. Last time, he had just gotten it out of the shop when someone hit him again.

 Back at the hotel and we agree on the time to leave and we go to our room on floor 8. There is a party happening on floor 2 where the restaurant is. We had seen rather large speakers in there earlier. Finally around 10 or so, my daughter calls our room and complains about the noise and can we hear it. The party has started and is in full swing and you can even feel the bass jumping the room around. She calls the front desk and they are most apologetic and say we can move to a new room for the night and keep the room we have as well so we don’t have to move all of our stuff. They come up with keys and show us each a room across the hall which isn’t really much better. Standing in the hall, you can feel/hear the music coming up the stairwell. They had told my daughter when she first called that they had rooms on the 12th floor so we wanted to see them as well. Those were better. We could hear/feel the music but not nearly as much so we asked for those two rooms. We were able to get some sleep that way and didn’t get drummed/bass-thumped so badly to lose sleep. Sometimes it is helpful to be the only ones in the hotel. A nice first day of touring and seeing some cool stuff and learning about the history of some of their heroes and founding fathers.