Spots in Durrës
Durrës City and Beach, Albania
After having been stuck inland for so long, I was delighted when the Oldies announced we were going to the coast again, this time to Durrës. I knew it was a large coastal city, so I expected a port. Sure enough, I wasn’t disappointed. Her Ladyship and I had a whale of a time there, oogling all the ships, containers and cranes.
There was a lot you wouldn’t expect too. Gaudily coloured communist architecture for one. Apparently, after the old communist dictatorship had fallen it was actively encouraged to paint buildings in bright colours. Not a bad idea at all. After all the doom and gloom, I’m sure it is good for the heart and the head as well as for the eye. I thought these polka dot apartment blocks were taking the idea a bit far though. I’ve been seeing spots before my eyes ever since!
I really liked the old town centre. For a start, the atmosphere was totally laid back, but then again, the whole country seems to be laid back. There is quite a mad mix of architecture here. Ancient town walls, old communist buildings of course, Art Nouveau, ultra-modern… Guess what this building is. A fancy office block? A five-star hotel? Would you believe, it’s actually a school. A seriously cool school!
On top of all that, there is a treasury of ancient Roman and Byzantine remains. With a capacity 15,000 to 18,000 spectators, the Durrës Roman amphitheatre is huge. What makes it more amazing is the fact that it was only discovered in 1966! I wonder how something that big went unnoticed for so long. The Oldies spent what felt like ages staring at the mosaics in the passageways underneath, but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. It was much too creepy for my liking. In fact, I shudder to think of what beasts used to be creeping around there before emerging into the arena to eat some poor unfortunates!
From the moment I arrived in this country, I realised how much the Albanians love their markets. Well, as the remains of this 6th century Byzantine market go to show, it seems they’ve been at it for a good while now.
I observed another fine example of Albanian entrepreneurship at the local bus station. From what I could see, private bus operators simply stick a hand-written sign stating the destination on the windscreen, then they tout for business. I noticed umpteen buses sitting there, half or three-quarters full of patient passengers sweltering in the heat, whilst the driver shouted out the destination to passers-by. No doubt once the bus is full, off they go. Sure, who needs a timetable?
On our visit to the railway station, His Lordship was like a little boy on Christmas morning. What a relic of the past. (The train station, not Himself. Although…). The elegant posters from a different era promised a lot more than the current reality: grand but timeworn waiting room, ancient trains, overgrown, wobbly rail lines, signs announcing routes that have long been discontinued… A train trip from here must be quite an adventure!
The seafront has obviously been revamped recently and it looks like a lot of money has been invested in the area. Even to my untrained bird’s eye however, it doesn’t stand up to close inspection. There are some very fancy shops, restaurants and hotels, but many look badly built or have been left unfinished. Worst of all, the water at the city beach is quite uninviting. Let’s just say that you wouldn’t catch me floating here! Well, it was very close to the port and the city centre, I thought. The main beach outside town will be a lot better.
Durrës Plazh, the main beach, was thronged! The sunbathers were packed together like sardines. In fact, having covered themselves with oil, to my eye they really did resemble sardines. Mmmm, good enough to eat…. But I lost my appetite fierce quick when I took a closer look. The water was murky and even black with oil in places and there was litter everywhere. Yuck! I had long realised that recycling is almost non-existent in this country, the waste collection system very hit and miss and littering and dumping rampant. Even so, I found it hard to fathom how people could litter the very beach they were using.
Thank goodness for the folks who collect plastic to earn a few extra Lek.
For once I wasn’t heartbroken when the Oldies decided to beat a retreat from the beach and head back into to the city centre in search of King Zog’s summer villa. Typically, they hadn’t made much effort to get exact directions, preferring instead to follow their noses, or rather, His Lordship’s. This method has proven to be reasonably successful in the past, but it doesn’t always work in Albania. Basically because the roads cannot be relied on to, well, be there. They followed a road that led them in the right direction but it simply ended abruptly. Undeterred, His Lordship attempted another route. But instead of a royal residence, we found a concentration camp.
I was shocked at the state it was in. A cow munched away at the weeds and litter around the base of a stone pedestal at the entrance to the camp. There was a huge pile of rubbish dumped on the road opposite. The bunker, watch tower and remains of the buildings were overgrown with briars and weeds.
On reflection, I suspect that, unlike the Roman and Byzantine remains, some relics of the more recent past stir up a lot of painful memories. Perhaps they do need to remain overgrown and neglected for a while before being unearthed for future generations.
