The journey
“So where are you from?” asked the hotel staffer delivering my first batch of room service items. “England”, I offered. “Oh nice, how long, how many hours?” he replied, still in small talk mode. My response of “Eight days”, however, stopped him in his tracks, a look of confusion on his face.
“Did you come by bike or something?”
Whilst not that arduous, my journey had indeed been something – Tirana representing the end point of a quest to cross Europe at ground level. I did at least treat myself to a plane home – BA returning me to London in a mere three hours. This, though, came at eye-watering expense due to a bank holiday: the one-way economy flight cost more than five days of first class train rides.
The destination
Tirana was the first of my 2020 travel plans to be scuppered by COVID – I was meant to visit the Albanian capital on March 21st of that year, but non-essential travel was called to a halt on the 16th and my booking was cancelled the next day. Back then I had been lured by both attractively-priced tier points – TIA earns double due to its distance, but fares out of Gatwick were cheap – and the relative obscurity of the destination.
Never part of the Soviet Union, Albania was nonetheless a Communist state. A single dictator, Enver Hoxha, ruled for over 40 years, and it was not until 1992 – seven years after his death – that the Party of Labour lost control of the country.
I was keen to both explore relics of this era, and to see how Tirana had changed since. Unfortunately, whereas I had previously intended to visit in Spring, the race saw me arrive in late August. With temperatures in the high 30s plus the exhaustion of my recent travels, I found little energy for sightseeing!
The accommodation
Instead I made the most of my chosen accommodation, easily the nicest spot of the eight I had sampled in as many days. I had picked the Tirana Marriott for its central location and surprisingly low pricing, at a little over £100 per night. It would also keep my Bonvoy account active for another year…
Arriving at lunchtime a sweaty mess, I was offered chilled water and the opportunity to check in immediately – provided I swapped my king room for a twin. This turned out to be a great trade, as it also placed me on the 15th floor, with views through floor-to-ceiling windows down to an attached sports stadium. The room itself was enormous, although curiously-shaped; and it was fitted out to a high standard, from comfortable beds and a powerful shower to surprising features like motorised curtains.
There were a few service issues: maintenance tried to access the room at nearly midnight on my first day; despite setting a ‘do not disturb’ sign I found housekeeping in the room when I returned from a quick shopping trip the next; and I was triple-charged for breakfast on the final morning, which I failed to notice at checkout and took a month to get refunded. But despite these I’d happily recommend – and return to – this property.
The tourist attractions
As mentioned, I spent a lot of daylight hours lazing around the hotel to avoid the heat; Saturday evening was also taken up by a surprisingly enjoyable party with the other Lupine racers.
I did manage to tick off a few landmarks: the grand Skanderbeg square; The Cloud, an architectural art installation; and the very recently renovated Tirana Pyramid (although I’m sad I didn’t get to explore it whilst it was still a derelict brutalist icon). Along the way I discovered the bazaar-like conversion of the Tirana Castle site, and the pedestrianised Murat Toptani street: their open-air bars and restaurants creating a lively atmosphere post-sundown.
The only cultural site I explored in depth, however, was BunkArt2. The deeply paranoid communist authorities built over 175,000 doomsday bunkers across the country, and this one in central Tirana was intended for the ministry of Internal Affairs. Today it serves partly as a museum of the surveillance state that existed under the regime, and partly as an artistic response to such conditions.
The exhibits presented a world I could only relate to via Orwell’s 1984. Albanians could trust neither the government nor their neighbours, thanks to the combined reach of the Sigurimi secret police and civilian collaborators. The truth was no defense – information could be fabricated by informants in the first place, or later manipulated by officers for political purposes. The spycraft of secret bugs and hidden cameras would be fascinating, were its use not so chilling. Sections on banishment, internment and the closure of Albania to foreign influences made for equally grim reading. Not an easy visit, but one I’m glad I made.
The meal
Food in Tirana was very affordably priced, to the extent that even hotel room service seemed a reasonable option. The highlight of my short stay at the Marriott was their Albanian breakfast, offering “flamed Albanian fruit of the season, maple yoghurt [and] Albanian petulla dusted with cinnamon sugar” alongside “7-minute eggs, grilled sujuk, herb marinated feta [and] sumac cucumber”. The trio of plates which arrived were loaded with yet more items, and I spent much of the early afternoon working through this meal…
Sujuk turned out to be a spiced sausage, whilst petulla is essentially deep-fried dough: this can be served plain as an accompaniment to savoury items such as feta, but thanks to a sugar coating these ones were definitely at the sweet end of the spectrum. Both are worth sampling if you visit, alongside the local version of borek, flaky pastry usually filled here with spinach and cheese.
