Shkoder 🇦🇱

 Https://tiffstraveltales.travelmap.net/uk-travel-2023

Today I explored Shkoder, a city of significance north of Tirana towards the border with Montenegro. I chose some vastly different sites to see and did so while battling some pretty wet conditions, and navigating the local busses.

First stop today was catching a bus and walking up the hill to Castle Rozafa.  The ancient castle set high on a hill started construction BC and has had additions in the medieval and Ottoman periods. 

  It overlooks the confluence of several rivers with an excellent viewpoint - well, apparently so, as today it was shrouded in fog with glimpses now and again of the beautiful green of the water. 

I walked back down the hill and along the main road till a bus stop.  I asked the bus conductor

if he could advise the best way to get to the Venice Mask factory.  Amazingly the bus I was on continued through town and passed by the factory.  He was super jovial and friendly with a brother in Sydney and they kindly dropped me straight outside the entrance!

The factory appeared shut and I was cold and wet and then a door opened and a lady asked if I was tourist 😂 she opened a door and I was transported to a world of glitz and glamour, all displayed in a huge showroom with music playing! 

 They make the Papier Mache masks on site and then they have a team who hand paint them.  I saw the ladies and each has an expertise such as applying sequins or feathers etc.  they can work on each mask for 1hr at a time and then it needs to dry overnight.  Masks take 5 days - 3 weeks to decorate.  The company has been making masks for 27yrs and has 8 stores in Italy, plus one in Las Vegas.
The rain had eased and so I walked back to town through some more 'rustic' neighbourhoods, lots of stray dogs 😥 grabbed a borej (pastry with spinach and cottage cheese) for lunch for 60c from a local bakery. 

Then to the 'Site of Witness and Memory'.  A sobering museum, housed in the old prison where political prisoners were incarcerated and tortured during the communist regime.  This museum opened in 2014 and after watching a documentary, you enter the museum , firstly honouring many of the thousands who were killed with their photos. Shkoder was known as the prison city.  When communism declared Albania atheist, all mosques and churches were ordered to be destroyed and the clergy brought to prison for torture.  The museum was was sobering and confronting.

I do feel for the Albanian people with such atrocities with communism only being overruled recently in 1991.
By now I was very cold and wet and so returned to the hostel to change and hang up my wet clothes.  Had a great time chatting with an Aussie and American guys staying at the hostel and sharing travel stories.  It's why I choose to stay at hostels 😊
Treated myself to a fancy seafood restaurant for dinner with beautiful surrounds, music and food ($12 for seafood spaghetti) and a wander through the restaurant district. 
Thanks Albania for another interesting and surprising day.