Let’s hope the above sign near the base of the Mt Dajti cable-car in lovely Tirana remains largely anachronistic :-). I’ve gone ahead and popped all Tirana photos with anything vaguely sign-like into this post. So you’re seeing several photos from inside the claustrophobic former command-bunker near the cable car base, which is now the one of two museums based inside ex-bunkers, and of Steve standing atop a bunker-like miniature golf hole at the top of Mt. Dajti. We sensed that Albania is very happy that now one can, more or less, make fun of the bunkers rather than depleting the national budget building them. I can think of quite a few things I wish the current US govt weren’t spending our tax dollars on, and several folks getting very rich indeed on the spoils of their current power and influence, in ways that feel much more like the Albania of old, than the US I grew up in.
The pyramids of Giza it’s certainly not, but Steve and I were both quite happy that we disregarded the guidebook’s casual dismissal of this “pyramid of Tirana,” on our last-afternoon stroll around town.
Both above and below, you are seeing a piece of the Berlin Wall, next to one of the more than 750,00 or so bunkers built with Albanian state funds during the Hoxha administration. Ah, the things our governments do with our tax dollars…
In the park area around the top of the Mt Dajti Cable cars near Tirana was this peacock showing off. During some of my LA-based years, I heard from friends who lived on the PV peninsula that the feral peacocks up there would now and then scratch up a shiny expensive sports car, because when they saw their reflection in the shiny surface, their attack – the – rival instincts were activated.
Tirana: parliament building to the right, main mosque to the left. Steve pondered what the contrast between the two might indicate. Amongst images in the gallery below is the monument to Albania’s independence from the Ottoman Empire.
All from in and around Skanderberg square in the center of Tirana. Amazing that it’s already a month ago that we finished those lovely two weeks in the Balkans.
The garden and grounds of Albania’s former dictatorial ruler, Enver Hoxha, are now a lovely museum and oasis open to the public in the heart of the busy city.
What you’re seeing here is a) the source in both its liquid and vapor forms, and b) the village of Trpejca as seen from about 300 meters higher up along the slops of Mt Magaro. We stayed along the little road that cuts down the left side of the steep lower hill that Trpjeca straddles. If the resolution were stronger, I’d identify our rooftop for you b/c it’s certainly visible in the frame :-). Below, more of the area and also some of the source in its solid, snowy state.
In case you’re keeping track, what you’re seeing above is 2200-meter high Mt Magaro, in this case as seen from the northeast on a 1987-meter prominence that I hiked up to early last week. We showed you this mountain in our first post from Macedonia, nearly three weeks ago. Here, we show you more of the lovely mountainous terrain between and around Magaro, Lake Ohrid (top right corner here, with probably a bit of Albania visible in the distance) and Lake Prespa (top left corner here, with probably bits of both Albania and Greece showing up, since all three countries share Prespa), where Steve and I spent a glorious day exploring, last week.
(so much world, so little time....) 