Tirana, the capital city of Albania!!!

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Tirana… the capital city of Albania!
Many people said visiting Tirana was not worth it and I should skip it but I thought I would do the judging of this city on my own so after teo days in Berat I got a bus to Tirana for the night.

Although my time in Tirana was short I got to experience what the Albanian big city was about and I finally saw where all the younger people in Albania are!

I arrived mid morning and checked in into my hostel. At check in I met a french guy who was volunteering at the hostel and said he was almost done with his shift and could show me around. We walked through some of the streets of Tirana and ended up at the “Pyramid of Tirana” which used to be the Enver Hoxha (the communist leader in Albania) Museum (now is an empty building) and once the most expensive building in all of Albania.

Well, now that is empty people find it adventurous and fun to climb up the cement structure all the way up to the roof… and we did! By then Leo, a German guy I met in Berat, had joined us and went up with us.

Leo coming up

Once at the top some of the gypsy kids in the area joined us to ask for money or anything that we could give them. The kids were very rude and somehow have learned really bad words in english, which made it really unlikely that I would give them anything!

We tried to ignore them but then they kept doing things so we would pay attention to them. At one time the french guy from the hostel started smoking and the kids asked for cigarettes but he refused to give them one so the kids got out their own! I couldn’t believe!!! These 8 years old smoked cigarettes! It was unbelievable! It wasn’t a bluff, they started smoking and my heart sank, I am “hugely” against any kind of smoking, or dugs and to see these little guys smoking broke my heart and couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life they lead. Being with them got a little bit too much for me to handle so we decided to go down.

The kids... so young! So sad!

CRAZY!

The way down was the scariest part since we had no way of really gripping on to anything and the cement was a little slippery. I took off my shoes and tried my best not to kill myself but almost at the bottom I lost control and couldn’t really stop myself. I started screaming and cursing and I really thought I would break a bone going down but thankfully the two guys caught me at the bottom! haha

From then we kept walking and I decided to visit an exhibition about the Albanian communist area in a former bunker. First I entered Bunk Art 2 and the girls working there told me Bunk Art 1 was bigger and opened until 5pm so I decided to visit that one first.

Before coming to Albania I did not know anything about the country’s history with communism, oppression, and war so everything that I read was new info to me.

I took the bus and got dropped off by the Bunk Art 1 tunnel entrance. Bunk Art 1 was a 15 minute drive from the center of Tirana and it was built for military purposes for normal functioning of political and military commanding in time of crisis and to give shelter to political and military leaders.

Tunnel to Bunk Art1

After getting my super cheap entrance (like $2) I had to walk for 5-7 minutes to reach the main exhibit entrance. Entering the bunker was crazy, first because from where the bus dropped me off you couldn’t see anything, and then because my head just started wondering what it was actually like when the bunker was in use.

Scary looking mannequin on the way to the entrance.

I only had to go through like 5 thick cement doors to get in!

I read in one of info panels that the walls in the bunker are 1meter deep and the roof is 100 meters thick… This bunker was for sure not going to be destroyed with anything!

I spent almost two hours reading through all the info, looking at all the pictures, and trying to wrap my head around all the events that happened during Albania’s dark years under a communist dictatorship. The history of this country is very painful but I am glad that museums like Bunk Art are being opened to share their past with us and raise our awareness. At the same time it makes me sad that we haven’t learned from it and that countries are still living under such regimes.

Enver's office

The communication room. Crazy that from this room you knew everything that was going on in the outside world .

Bunkers around Albania

From Bunk Art1 I decided to take the cable car up to the mountain behind Tirana. The view from the gondola was beautiful but sadly when I got to the top the view wasn’t as great and it was overcast.

I decided to go for a walk around and found some old bunkers from the time of war. In Albania there were 173,371 bunkers built in total, which averages a bunker per 11 Albanian residents… That’s just insane! I also read that every year 21,000 bunkers were built! It really blows my mind!

Now decorated bunkers!

Once back in the center of Tirana I walked around a more modern pat of the city before heading back to the hostel and relaxing before my next top… Shkroder!

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!