A Momentus Week in Tirane

We had thought it was too good to be true that our clutch would arrive without any hiccups but when the courier stopped communicating with us altogether we weren’t sure just how bad the situation was. The last we had heard was when the clutch arrived at his Mum’s house in Kent

Calling him from a different number at least got him to answer but hearing that he had given our precious cargo to a different courier who was somewhere across Europe was not the news we had been hoping for.

If the new courier arrived on Sunday then all good, but we had lost confidence in anything we were being told.

There was nothing we could do but wait so we needed to take our minds off things. The solution was to return to what we enjoy most and go exploring.

We walked to the TEG, a large shopping centre where we could get a bus into the city centre. In Albania, tickets are sold in the traditional way by a conductor on the bus itself and it cost us 36p each for a half hour journey. It was all very convenient and easy, there is a lot to be said for old skool!

Tirane has been around for thousands of years but just in the last thirty it has been transformed into a colourful, vibrant modern city with a very young feel. In fact, half of all its inhabitants are under 35

It was fascinating to wander around, seeing an eclectic mix of architectural styles ranging from communist-era through to ultra modern

Some of the new buildings reminded me very much of what you might see in Birmingham

And there were a huge number of high-rise buildings under construction – which is no accident. The Albanian government are running an architectural competition where architects from across the world are invited to come to the city and build tall buildings with a message. The message and the design are up to the architects, the winner will be announced in 2030 just as Albania joins the EU

Buildings have been designed with various themes. This one looks like twitching curtains to represent the saying that the Albanian independence movement started when people looked through their windows and saw what other people had

This one has a detailed topological map of the country designed into the window profiles

But this was my favourite, designed to look like Skanderbeg’s face in profile and given how popular a hero Skanderbeg is, I am sure it will be the ultimate winner

The purpose of the competition is to encourage growth upwards instead of outwards. Everywhere we looked, the city was full of cranes and construction work

And it was clear that the Albanians are very excited about joining the EU

We saw this impressive building soaring above the main road looking for all the world like an Ottoman palace from the 16th century

But it turned out to be a modern hotel, so new it wasn’t yet open!

There is a lot of art across the city. From huge pieces of street art

To eclectic structures

To a project painting all the city’s benches

And a visiting Japanese art installation known as The Cloud

One of the more quirky ways in which art is expressed, however, is in the road signs. With full approval of the authorities, people ‘amend’ the signs to be more humorous

This was an official sign warning people who publicly urinate that they would be filmed and put on You Tube!

And we discovered that the Albanian flag, a symbol of pride and hope to the people which is displayed everywhere you go, is even proudly included in most of the traffic lights

As we walked towards the new open air library we heard music playing and peered through some hoardings to find the Albanian Symphony Orchestra rehearsing for a tribute the composer Ennio Morricone who wrote the music to hundreds of very famous films and TV shows

This one came straight out of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The open air library itself was wonderful

Opened only six months ago in Mother Theresa Square, it was a very calm and relaxed place

The security guard welcomed us to sit and enjoy the space for as long as we wanted.

We reached the district of Blloku which used to be a gated enclave for Enver Hoxha and his government cronies but is now the bohemian quarter full of restaurants and bars. We found ‘Uncle’ Enver’s old house

Which now contains an art exhibition, but it was closed, much to James’ relief!

The nearby villa of Enver’s old second in command, Mehmet Shehu, is now a heavily guarded government building but we were able to stand in the park and look across to see the large statue of Stalin stored in the garden

Apparently there is also one of Lenin but we couldn’t find it.

We did find a piece of the Berlin Wall though, a gift from Germany

As well as one of the 700,000 bunkers that were built across the country

And the Bell of Peace, constructed by children in 1997 out of spent shells from the civil war

Tirane has changed out of all recognition over the last few years and is still changing. As a prime example, the Pyramid of Tirane was built in the 1980s as a museum dedicated to the glory of Enver Hoxha but closed in the 1990s after the communist regime fell. It sat derelict as a symbol of rebellion. I read a review of the city written only a couple of years ago which described the pyramid as a ‘quirky and abandoned structure which is interesting to climb up’.

But when we arrived to look at it, we found a vibrant and busy public centre

With new stairs built into the old, crumbling sides

And colourful boxes scattered around the outside housing restaurants, art hubs and small businesses

Albania is reinventing itself rapidly and we felt as though we were standing right at the epi-centre of this transformation. On the one hand it was a shame that we were about 5 years too late to see how the country used to be but on the other hand it was a fascinating time to be there and see the changes happening all around us.

We stood on the top of the pyramid and admired the views across the city

Before heading to one of the colourful buildings below for a very good lunch.

In the afternoon we walked past the Independence Memorial

And tried to visit Tirane Castle, but found only a very busy and touristy collection of bars and restaurants with no discernible castle anywhere to be seen. So instead we dashed to the Orthodox Cathedral of Resurrection before it closed

It was huge and modern

And quite impressive

Our last stop of the day was the House of Leaves – a building which previously housed the Albanian Secret Police and was the nerve centre for the surveillance and torture of citizens under the communist regime. It is now a museum dedicated to the victims of the terror that was inflicted

There was so much detail and information it was quite overwhelming

But fascinating all the same

With rooms set out to show all aspects of the regime’s control over the people

In the grounds was an underground dungeon

And an old bunker

Now converted into a chapel

By the time we had finished we were exhausted and hopped back on the bus to our lovely park-up place where we were given an armful of home-grown lettuce!

Our day in Tirane had done the trick of keeping our minds off the clutch but the next day was Sunday and we had arranged for the courier to meet us at our park-up place as soon as he arrived in the city. We had no idea what time he would get there so we had no choice but to simply sit and wait.

As we waited we were given more lettuce along with two beautiful roses from the family’s garden

We waited and waited until eventually we got a call from the original courier – the new courier had been taken off the ferry from Italy to Albania the previous night as it was too full, so he would not arrive with us until Monday.

We were deflated but unsurprised. The only positive to this was that we were given the telephone number of the new courier and when I sent him a message I got an immediate and very friendly response along with his current location pin. He was driving 500km from the busy northern port of Ancona to the smaller port in Bari in the hope that he would have a better chance of getting on a ferry.

Our confidence levels actually rose a little – at least they had let us know this time and if this was all a big scam it was a very sophisticated one.

But we were booked into Mercedes at 8am the next morning and would have no clutch. There was also no way of letting them know as it was Sunday afternoon, so we decided to go in and see them as soon as they opened in the morning and explain the situation in person.

We also decided to move from our park-up place, lovely as it was, because it was on the opposite side of town to Mercedes and we were getting a little tired of the chaotic driving around the city. We had found a new place only a few minutes’ drive from Mercedes in the car park of a local events hotel and drove there that afternoon

It was just as calm as our original place but was very close to the airport so planes flew overhead all day and all night. It didn’t matter though, we were just pleased to be safe, secure and on the right side of town

We had harboured hopes of persuading Mercedes to start removing the existing clutch on Monday morning whilst we waited for the new one to arrive but even that hope died when we were sent this photograph later in the evening

Our courier had had a blow-out 3 hours from Bari – apparently the second one on this trip – and no-one would come out to help until the morning.

Were we cursed or were we still being duped? We didn’t sleep well that night.

The manager at Mercedes greeted us with a broad smile when he arrived at the office on Monday morning and said ‘right, all ready to get started then?’.  We shook our heads sadly and brought him up to date.

His reaction was about as good as we could have hoped for. No sign of annoyance, frustration or even, really, surprise. He simply said to give him a call when the clutch arrived and they would start work the following morning.

Feeling slightly better, but with little to do with ourselves, we took the opportunity of going to visit the campsite just outside town where BigMog would be staying whilst we were away in the UK and Namibia. At least if it was awful we still had time to change our plans.

But when we arrived at the campsite it was very far from awful, in fact it was idyllic!

The owners were lovely and very helpful and there was no doubt that BigMog would be safe and happy there.

We even met another couple travelling in a UniMog, the first we had seen since leaving the UK. We chatted for ages and swapped numbers – and you won’t be surprised to hear that James is helping them with advice on how fix a few problems they’re having with it!

It was still only lunchtime by now though so we left the truck back at the hotel car park and jumped on another bus back into the city – this one taking over an hour to do a 9km journey but at least BigMog was safely tucked away from the madness on the roads.

We sauntered into Skanderbeg Square to see his statue

Found the Opera House

And the famous mural on the wall of the Natural History Museum which has had all the original communist symbols removed

We then had a quick look at the Et’hem Bej Mosque

But the main event of the afternoon was to be Bunk Art 2, a huge bunker built in the city which has now been converted into another museum documenting the history of the communist regime and the role of the secret police

Despite my nerves at being in an underground bunker, it was a fascinating exhibition – although like the House of Leaves there was so much information to read it took over 3 hours and we still didn’t manage to get through more than 25% of it all

One thing I did read though was that during the communist era around 2,500 tourists visited Albania each year and had to adhere to strict dress and hairstyle rules as well as being followed around by the police…

Why did they come?

Back at the hotel car park that evening we had the news we had been desperate for – the courier had finally made it onto the ferry. He even sent a photo he had taken from the deck

We breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Tuesday was the best day and the worst day at the same time. The courier initially said he expected to be with us by 1pm but by 2pm he was still waiting for customs clearance. We waited and then waited a bit more and eventually, at 5pm he said he was in Tirane. But to add to our frustrations, he didn’t have time to bring the clutch to us as he had to get home, shower, re-pack and get to the airport for his flight back to the UK in 2 hours’ time. What a life.

To our great relief he arranged for a taxi to deliver the clutch to us and it arrived through the hotel gates at 5:45pm.

It was like all our Christmas’s had come at once. We unloaded the various boxes from the taxi and James unwrapped everything to check it was all there and undamaged

It was perfect

The new clutch plate was enormous – 8 paddles instead of our current 6 and all ceramic

Even the owner of the hotel, who we had got quite friendly with over the last few days, was impressed.

But Mercedes said they were booked out on Wednesday and would call us at some point during the day to confirm whether they could do Thursday.

Our hearts sank, and they sank even further when we still hadn’t heard from them by Wednesday lunchtime. By now we were thoroughly fed-up and extremely bored. So we jumped on another bus and went to Mercedes to talk to them.

The manager was as friendly as ever and he and James bonded over motorbikes. It turned out that they were waiting for a day when they had nothing else booked in so they could get everything done and return BigMog to us the same day. When we explained we were planning to book into a hotel for a night he looked relieved and agreed to start the next morning for us to collect on Friday.

We were thrilled and celebrated by going back into town and joining a guided walk to learn all about the art and architecture of the city

It was very interesting and taught us much of what I have written about here.

We finished at the beautiful Mosque of Namazgah

We had seen it souring above the skyline many times but had never been able to find it

It had been a good day and we were feeling much more positive about the world than we had been for a while.

BigMog was back at Mercedes half an hour before they officially opened the next day and the clutch was laid out on the table next to him

After a quick chat we were asked to leave – I guess having the parents around during a major operation is not the best idea!

The hotel owner where we had been parked for the last few days had very kindly offered us a room for as long as we needed so we headed back there, let ourselves in and gazed out over the skyline wondering how BigMog was getting on

But after a short time, our nervous exhaustion took over and we spent most of the day lying on the bed reading, writing this blog and dozing. We only ventured out to walk to a nearby restaurant for pizza in the evening.

The next day was always going to be hard. We had no idea how long it would take for Mercedes to finish the clutch and if they didn’t get it done today it would be Monday at the earliest before we could get him back.

I did my training on the balcony then we caught the bus back into the city to while away the hours. We went to the New Bazaar to try some street food but it seemed a bit run down and we didn’t fancy eating there.

Instead we walked back to Skanderbeg Square and found a fabulous restaurant right next to the Opera House.

And just as we were enjoying some of the best food we had had in a long time, my phone beeped in my pocket. I took it out to read and my heart leapt – BigMog was out of surgery and we could pick him up any time we wanted.

Our plans for the rest of the day were put in the bin, we hurried down the rest of our meal and dashed straight for the bus. An hour later we were reunited with our truck with big smiles on our faces

They showed us the old clutch, it had been in a terrible state, no wonder we had been having so many problems

And when they presented us with the bill I nearly choked. You may recall that Mercedes in the UK had quoted us £2,200 in labour to fit the clutch whereas with the very low hourly rate here in Albania we were expecting it to cost around £500. I checked and double checked the total at the end of the bill and even got my calculator out to check my mental arithmetic on the exchange rate.

But it was right, everything stacked up – the bill was £239! And they still apologised for being more expensive than most local mechanics.

As we pulled out of the garage it seemed that all BigMog’s problems were behind us – the clutch was strong and smooth and the gear changes were perfect.

We arrived back at the hotel car park to be greeted enthusiastically by the owner. He was as thrilled as we were and offered to take us out for the evening – he wanted us to see his old house which he was renovating and then would take us for a beer. How could we refuse?

He brought out two push bikes and an electric scooter and told us it was about 500m away and another 600m further on to his favourite bar.

The boys graciously allowed me to take the scooter whilst they peddled furiously all the way on the bikes. It was my first time on an electric scooter and it was great fun. I had a huge grin on my face all the way there.

The house was slightly out of town and the views over the countryside were lovely

But the bar turned out to be 3km away and poor James was struggling with a bad foot and a pounding headache so didn’t have quite such a good time as I did, sailing along with the wind in my hair.

By the time we got back to BigMog all we wanted was an early night, curled up safe and sound with our truck. We had had over a year of the clutch and gears getting not-so-slowly worse along with an increasing dread about what was wrong and how on earth we were going to fix it. Now it was all done, his gear changes were smooth, the clutch had stopped screeching and we could relax.

We had less than two weeks before our flights to the UK but that still left us plenty of time to go south and experience the beautiful Albanian Riviera. Our adventures were back on track and nothing but sun, sea and blue skies lay ahead of us…or at least that’s what we thought for a whole 12 hours…