Entering Tirana (the capital of Albania) is a little chaotic. This has much to do with the fact that the city has grown really rapidly following the collapse of the communist regime in the 90’s. Since this time the country has undergone rapid urbanisation, much of it through illegal construction on the outskirts of Tirana, and only now is the infrastructure beginning to catch up.

One of the reasons for the chaos is the traffic.. I’ve been to some other cities where the traffic is pretty insane (Vietnam particularly), but this is the first big city I’ve been to where the locals seems genuinely afraid of cars. And for good reason… Predicting driver behaviour is near impossible. Some will stop for pedestrians even in the middle of a busy main road while others refuse to even slow down at pedestrian crossings. Some cars drive at 10 kms per hour, others at 80km even in the middle of the city.

Up until the fall of the communist regime, the people of Albania weren’t allowed to own cars (in 1990 there was only a few thousand cars in the whole country). In the last 20 years however, the locals have embraced capitalism and car ownership with great zeal, and they seem determined to make up for lost time by driving as much as possible! Once you understand this, the traffic doesn’t seem so bad, and it’s much easier to forgive the haphazard driving.

Once you get in to the centre, Tirana is a really lovely, vibrant, and surprisingly modern city. This is at least in part to the former mayor and artist, Edi Rama (now the Prime Minister). One of his initiatives was to paint all of the communist era block apartments in bright colours. Apparently this transformed the formerly grey city almost overnight. Much of the original colour has faded somewhat on many buildings, but the Tiranian’s have embraced the idea and now it’s not unusual to see buildings dressed out in teal and hot pink.

Tirana also has plenty of interesting history. Anything really old has largely been torn down, but most of the interesting stuff has to do with the communist regime. My favourite is the large pyramid right in the centre. It was designed by Enver Hoxha’s (the former dictator) daughter after his death. It’s a testament to the regime that such a building exists. While I think it’s really cool, it also looks like it was designed by a ten year old…

During Envar Hoxha’s reign, a large part of the city was blocked off for the exclusive use of communist party members and their families, and ordinary Albanians were prevented from entering by armed guards. The Bloc, as it is now affectionately known, has since been reclaimed, and in an ironic twist, could best be described as a shrine to capitalism. There are more designer shops, restaurants, nightclubs and bars per square metre here than almost anywhere else I’ve been.

The food here is also really good, and ridiculously cheap. We ate out every one of the five nights we stayed and enjoyed the food more than anywhere else in Europe. Who would have thought that Albania would turn out to be the food highlight of our trip so far?? Oh, and they also had pastries (the first I’ve seen in a while)…lots of baklava, Middle eastern biscuits and other Turkish delights.