Tiranë, Albania (WAIT, The River is What?)

The city adds new meaning to the word excrement.

This city adds new meaning to the word excrement.

I’ve been sending you postcard snapshots of various places. These are, for the most part, not the usual tourist cities. The weather is hot, and the beaches are crowded. We have no reservations. Join me as we wander through the Balkans and parts of western Europe, seat-of-our-pants style.

If you’ve been following along on our road trip, you know that this city was a last-minute addition. My husband actually wanted to skip it without telling me why, but it would have made that day’s drive unbearable, especially with a long border crossing at the end, delayed by the wrong insurance procurement.

So I’ll begin this short post again with my view of Albania: there is good, bad, and downright ugly. First, the good.

SÒRSO Wine Bar. I think this is one of the best wine bars I’ve ever experienced. The owner seemed Italian as he talked about his upcoming vacation to visit Mama in Italy. His knowledge of wines in the region was terrific. We had the best prosciutto, paired with the right wines and cheeses.

Yes, I bought Albanian wine.

The ceiling was a hand-painted mural. Sorry about the photos, but I couldn't get the entire ceiling in one shot.

Category: Beyond good. Excellent.

What does this city look like? Well, most of the buildings, even with some new construction, look like the two photos below. The streets are tree-lined, but nowhere does it look like 2026. Everything looked like it was somewhere between 1950 and 2000.

In our hotel, security was tight. I felt somewhat like I was on a mafia movie set, given how these guys were built like bulldozers, wore sunglasses, and dressed in suits with earpieces down their collars.

The clothing stores looked strange to me, and it took walking by several before I realized that all the shoes and clothing were used. The butcher below had much less meat in his shop than I’m used to in either country where I live or the other countries we had just been to. I don’t know why.

The feeling in the city was depressing, and not from the heat. You could tell from the people and the haphazard way the city was thrown together; something was wrong.

Category: Not good, not too bad. Just a city with a past they (maybe) could not seem to get over.

This city was just another on a long list of cities—until you get to the Lana River that runs through the middle of town. This is where I drew the line. 1 I’ve included the reminder about the Flamingo Revolution and the Kushners. This revolution is only the tip of the iceberg. Why?

This “beautiful” river below is not water. It is RAW sewage. I first crossed the bridge the night we arrived and was surprised by the strong smell. I thought maybe there was construction and a broken pipe nearby. The next street, several blocks down (we were checking out various places to eat or get a glass of wine), made my eyes water.

So I researched it. And no, it’s definitely not water. Very little water is coming down from the mountains this time of year. This problem is the biggest political mess I’ve seen in a long time, and I quickly understood how the Kushners thought they could exploit the situation. It explained so much about the city's mood and why there were protests in the first place.

People should not have to live this way. Keep protesting, Albania. Your country is beautiful.

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