Why Albania?

People ask us why Albania?  According to our information, Albania has natural beauty in such abundance that you might wonder why it has taken a full 20 years for the country to take off as a tourist destination after the end of a particularly brutal strain of communism in 1991.  The Albanian coastline is reputed to be beautiful and we anticipated that we would find a country which resembles Croatia about 40 years ago and also much cheaper.  What we have seen so far confirms all this.  We have driven through beautiful countryside with awesome mountains and gorges.  We have come first to northern Albania where the mountains are and plan to cross over to Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia before descending to the coast.  We will then drive through the Dalmatian coastline and back to Albania along the seafront.  Oh and by the way, we now have permission to go to Bosnia-Herzegovina after all.

Stunning mountain scenery is what we expected and we are getting it in droves.

All around the hillsides and apparently all over the country there are small concrete domes with rectangular slits.  These bunkers are Enver Hoxha’s concrete legacy, built from 1950 to 1985.  Weighing in at 5 tonnes of concrete and iron, these little mushrooms are almost impossible to destroy.  They were built as sort of bomb shelters and can resist full tank assault.  Today, some are
creatively painted.  Here is one we came across later that has been decorated.