| Looking through travelogues on Albania and one has a | | | | houses going up to the hill has earned for the town of |
| distinct memory of Herges' French comic character | | | | Berat the "town of a thousand windows." |
| Tintin, in which the hero's haunts are in a place that | | | | Ottoman and Italian architecture and relics are to be |
| regularly mentions Syldavia. The author himself has | | | | found in the bustling city of Tirana, which is trying to |
| admitted that he modeled the fictional country on | | | | shed its gray Stalinist demeanor by having literally |
| Albania set in the 1900s to 1939. The country has been | | | | repainted some of its more impressive buildings in |
| in relative isolation despite being a fair stone's throw | | | | bright stunning colors. Where the past and the present |
| away from Italy in the west across the Ionian Coast, | | | | meet, Tirana is a city where one can see the |
| owing to the fact that it has been behind the Iron | | | | co-existence of delicate minarets with grand socialist |
| Curtain since the fall of Communism. Isolation however, | | | | murals. It is still possible to have fun at night though at |
| has its distinct advantages, in that it has retained a | | | | the city's many bars and restaurants in the evening. |
| flavor to its culture that one can only say as being | | | | Should one have a more adventurous spirit, you can |
| Albanian. | | | | try to brave Northern Albania which still retains its |
| The Ionian Coast is great to swim in, except perhaps | | | | outdoor, mountaineering, pioneer spirit where if you |
| for the sections between Durres and Fier which is | | | | happen to be unlucky, you may be caught in a |
| reported to be fairly polluted, but should not stop eager | | | | cross-fire in the once occurring blood feud. Most of the |
| tourists from enjoying up to 290 sunny days per year | | | | north is safe however, and one can still travel to |
| in the quaint little town of Saranda, which itself boasts | | | | Montenegro via the north in safety. |
| of some must-sees like an ancient monastery and | | | | So how may perhaps one describe Albania from |
| freshwater springs. Berat, the communist museum city | | | | reading the article above? It has the flavor of cultures |
| of its day, boasts of white Ottoman windows, that | | | | past but has its feet in the present, for me I think, its |
| climb all the way up to the Illyrian fortress of Antipatria, | | | | like having something nice and crunchy on the outside |
| believed to be built in the 3rd century BC. So many | | | | and something juicy in the inside! |