I woke up a little early on 08.07.09 in order to get some work done prior to heading out for the day. the plan was to head to Berati, but then we found out it was like 2.5-3 hours each way and that would only leave us about 4 hours to cruise the town…so we ditched that plan and went to Kruja, which has quite an interesting story…
It turns out that it’s the hometown of Skanderbeg, aka Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, the national hero of Albania. It’s also the fortress from where he defended against the Turks for some 23 years or so. They never managed to penetrate its inner walls thanks to his keen tactics. For Brevity here’s what Wikipedia says on him.
Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg (6 May 1405 – 17 January 1468) (Albanian: Gjergj Kastriot Skënderbeu, widely known as Skanderbeg, Turkish İskender Bey, meaning “Lord or Leader Alexander”), or Iskander Beg, was a prominent historical figure in the history of Albania and of the Albanian people. Known as the Dragon of Albania, he is the national hero of the Albanians and initially through the work of his main biographer, Marin Barleti, is remembered for his struggle against the Ottoman Empire, whose armies he successfully ousted from his native land for more than two decades
You can read more about him pretty much anywhere…he was pretty cool as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been looking for a cheap copy of his biography but have yet to find one. Though I did find Skanderbeg boulevard in Ulcinj, Montenegro. If you travel to a dozen cities in the world you might find a statue to him including Skopje (Macedonia) and as far as Michigan… Not bad for a guy that was only 165 centimeters tall.
Anyway, a quick cuppa Joe and off we go to the land of Skanderbeg. We took a mini-bus (furgon) which was awesome. You sort of go to this corner and just loudly say your destination until they point you to the right guy or the guy finds you. Then, if the mini-bus is empty you wait until it fills up. I managed to do a little shopping at the local bazaar and have a cup of coffee at a local cafe before ever climbing into the furgon. The furgon will also stop and pick people up or drop them off along the way. The whole disorderly way it works made me really love the country.
As I travel with no plan I thought that the furgons were quite possibly the coolest thing in the world and I was fairly good at figuring out how to do it, how much it was and where it was going as most didn’t speak English. Negotiating everything when you don’t speak the language is a great challenge and truly one of the things I love about travel. It’s a major part of the adventure and I picked up a lot of Albanian quick enough that my Albanian friends were surprised. It’s sort of like writing a thesis in the dark though, sloppy and imperfect. But if getting to where you want to go and paying what you expect are passing grades, then I’m graduated as it was 200 Leka (~$2 per person, each way) 🙂
So about 1.5 hours later we were dropped off at the foot of the Skanderbeg statue in Kruja and pointed in the direction of the castle. The city itself is booming if you look at all the construction that’s going on there. It’s going to be a proper little tourist town some day with big hotels and all that comes with it. Luckily, at present, it’s still got a bit of old school charm like the old bazaar street that leads up to the castle. While the goods might have changed, the looks and feel of the place still hearken back to the 1900s or even further. The road to the castle is lined with small shops selling a wide variety of things that made me glad I didn’t have money and really want money to spend on it all at the same time. I say glad because I would have had to carry it all back with me and that would have been too much work.
The castle consists of 2 museums, some cafes and pizzerias and some open space. It’s really been a bit commercialized but in the end was still worth the trip. I’ve seen this same thing happening to a lot of places including Shkadra, Albania. The first museum is all about Skanderbeg, his life, his fight with the Turks and some other major events that he kicked off. It was really cool and gave up some great photos even though we weren’t supposed to take photos.
The second, smaller museum, was the ethnographic one which had a house that was representative of the Ottoman era and showed how the owners of the land lived then as it was a sort of feudal society and some of the things they had. There were even guns and tools used during the defense of the fortress against the Turks. We had got the heads up that there was an old man there who could give us a tour in English and he did not disappoint in the least. he was full of information and really liked his job which was evident from the amount of emotion he put into the presentation.
The way back was a little trickier as we had to hop a furgon to an intermediate town and then wait until that one filled up to head back to Tirana. It was longer than expected and hot as hell. But in the end we paid the same amount and made it back just fine. Returning to Tirana meant it was time for more work to get done. After that I had a taste for Guinness and had heard there was an Irish pub in town…so I went out searching.
What I found was Meduza The Irish Pub. However this pub was in no way Irish…
Here are my Top 10 Reasons Why Meduza is Not an Irish Pub
10. Neon lights behind the bar.
9. Red Bull Neon on top of a piano, next to a karaoke machine
8. Quite well lit, very clean.
7. Neon under the bar which was illuminating coat hooks (so close to Irish there for a second)
6. Large choice of wines in a nice display, right next to the ice cream display cabinet.
5. Large Jack Daniel’s banners on the wall behind the bar.
4. A NASCAR driver jacket, between said banners on the wall.
3. Bartenders didn’t know how to say ‘cheers” in the Irish way (OR) Fashion TV was on the large LCD mounted high on the wall.
2. The ceiling was so high that maybe three Irishmen, sitting on each other’s shoulders could pass below it.
And the #1 reason why Meduza is not an Irish pub…NO GUINNESS ON TAP, just in a can (not even bottle). When asked when they were getting Guinness on tap they all just shrugged their shoulders, as if they never have it and it was the normal situation. They did ask me if all this was going to be online later and I said ‘yes’ so I’ve held up my end of the bargain…now it’s their turn to fix or change the situation.
After the disappointment that was Meduza I went back to Le Petite cafe. Now, this is not exactly a French-style cafe and that’s OK because they don’t actually call themselves a French-style cafe, they just have a French name. The service is good as are the prices. It’s got free Wi-Fi and when there was a problem the waiter was happy to reset it for me so I could get online. Big Bite Fast Food is right next door and even deliver to your table at the Cafe. That’s some cool cooperation.
Eventually I came to the realization (for personal reasons) that it was time to leave Tirana. So I packed up my bag with the intent of leaving the next day….