Albania, a new destination for tourism

TIRANA, Nov 24 – Albania has increasingly attracted the attention of world tourism considered as the last spot to be discovered by western Europeans in the Balkans.
British newspaper The Independent considered Albania as its destination of the week.
It said that Friday is Albania’s National Day, “in Europe’s strangest state. Albania was the last refuge in Europe of Stalinism, but has now energetically embraced capitalism with reconstruction at a furious rate; if you seek retro-communism, though, some prematurely aged post-war relics continue to function as hotels, equipped with extravagant staircases and inadequate plumbing.
The capital, Tirana (above), is lively, if baffling. In addition, you should visit Durres, a port steeped in history. Under the Romans it marked the start of the Via Egnatia, which stretched across the Balkans to Constantinople. The second-century Roman amphitheatre has gone to seed, and is sinking beneath a tangle of weeds; cattle now graze where gladiators once battled. And the splendid beach is no longer off-limits to Albanians (the communist government wanted to stop them being corrupted by foreign tourists), but is still uncrowded.”