Lezhë – Tirana

23rd day

This morning we didn't want to leave the farm without first having a typical breakfast. On social media, they said it was spectacular, but we didn't find it that impressive. However, since they had all their cheeses in the buffet, I was able to try them all 🧀. Besides the traditional ones, they have one very similar to brie that gives you goosebumps because it's so good. I couldn't take a piece with me because in the small space of Thorqui, the smell could be too much 🤭.

The next stop is a family camping site a couple of kilometers from Tirana, the capital, to visit one of the bunkers built during the communist era.

During the 20th century, and especially after the fall of the wall when Albanian students rebelled, the regime began to collapse after more than forty years of dictatorship. It was then that the country started to slowly emerge from isolation.
The events have been so recent that they are still trying to find their place on the map and are gradually trying to establish themselves 😑. The city of Tirana, although old, is brief due to the destruction it has suffered throughout history. It was proclaimed the capital in 1920 thanks to its location in the geographical center of the country.
We didn't feel encouraged to go to the center because, despite what they say about it having undergone significant changes, it didn't seem interesting while we were driving around it to reach the camping site 😟.
The road to get there is quite steep, unpaved, and has a couple of those curves that make you think you won't make it… but in the end, you do 🤭.
These campings, if we can call them that, are family-run. I suppose that when the country opened up, they found a way to earn some money by opening their homes to curious visitors. They are small, and the services are minimal, but the warmth with which they welcome you and their eagerness to make you comfortable more than compensates for the lack of those services 😌. They are wonderful people.

I’ll tell you that Albania has more than 173,000 concrete bunkers built between the 60s and 80s due to the fear of a foreign invasion… On the property, this family had one that the father showed us. A small narrow hallway with two small rooms and a vaulted ceiling. He told us with laughter that some of the guests who come ask to sleep there for a night to see what it feels like 😥.
Since it was laundry day, we left the washing machine running (which is the one from the house, as I mentioned before) and headed to “Bunk’Art 1”.

Built in 1978, it is a huge five-story nuclear bunker with 106 rooms constructed by Enver Hoxha due to his paranoia about a Russian or Chinese invasion.
It has five underground levels that include meeting rooms, quarters, and a large auditorium… It was never used and is currently a museum where you can learn about the history of Albania since World War II 😐.
We took the audiobook, and I really learned a lot about what this small country has lived through and left behind, and it still has much to achieve.

Cold hallways and more hallways sprinkled with doors that guard rooms telling stories with their own names. It is shocking that, according to what was explained, more than 27,000 people died building all those shelters across the country, when they were supposedly made to save lives 🤯.

We met an Italian girl (from Florence 😍) who has been traveling for a year by bicycle and tent 🫣.
We invited her to dinner at home because it was quite cold outside today. Three is the limit for the dining area of Thorqui, because four of us wouldn't fit. Elize was grateful to have a warm meal today because this camping site doesn't have heated rooms for those traveling in tents.
Good night… I’ll keep you posted 😘