Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Albania to assess country perceptions and tourism experience

In this post I inform you about one activity I am directly involved in my job and that is interesting in my opinion. UNDP is launching a survey about exit passengers at the international airport of Tirana. Below you find part of the article taken from the UNDP website.


"Albania will launch a one-year tourism survey this month in its first systematic attempt to assess foreign visitors’ experience in the country and to inform marketing and investment in Albania’s tourism sector.

The initiative is a joint effort of the Ministry of Tourism and the UNDP Image of Albania Project in partnership with the University of Tirana and with expertise provided by the Central American Institute for Business Administration (INCAE) in Costa Rica.

While Albania has great potential as an eco and cultural tourism destination, it lacks data on the socio-economic profile of its current visitors, their degree of satisfaction, their expenditures, activities and expectations. The tourism survey aims to fill this information gap by providing a comprehensive analysis and generating data that will be useful in the country’s marketing campaigns and its investment in eco and cultural tourism."


So, if you are not resident in Albania and you are leaving the country from the airport and you meet one interviewer asking to fill in a questionnaire, don't say no!

To read all the article go to this link:
http://www.undp.org.al/index.php?page=detail&id=43

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Martisor / Dita e Veres

Today is the Spring Day here in Albania and it is holiday (unfortunately not for the people working at international agencies...).

I found a good description of this festivity in this blog:
Orange Bakery: Martisor / Dita e Veres

And on 22 March there will be another holiday, the Norouz, celebrated by the islamic sect of the Bektashi.

Monday, March 12, 2007

My little trip through Albania (3)


Our next stop was Butrint, a place of an extraordinary beauty.
The ancient city of Butrint is half an hour drive from Saranda, passing through the village Ksamili. Butrint occupies a small peninsula between the Straits of Corfu and Lake Butrint. Inhabited since prehistoric times, Butrint has Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian monuments. By the legend Butrint was founded by exiles fleeing the fall of Troy.
As said it the leaflet of the National Park – Butrint is a microcosm of Mediterranean history, representing in its all phases of development, the rise and fall of all the great empires that dominated the region. Therefore it's possible to see monuments in a span of over 2000 years, from the Hellenistic temples dating from 4th century BC to the Ottoman defences from the 19th century.



The site is in good state, surrounded by forest which gives enough shade and makes the walk through Butrint the more enjoyable and more dreamlike.
Our timing for visiting was excellent as the nice weather created a spring atmosphere and awakened the vegetation, so most of the place was covered by hundreds of little, white flowers.
Having seen a lot of archaeological sites both in Italy and Greece I can claim that Butrint is among the most magical ones.

To be continued...



Tuesday, March 6, 2007

My little trip through Albania (2)

On Saturday morning we took the road heading to Saranda and Butrint. We stopped to see The Blue Eye (Syri i Kalter), a beautiful underwater spring of amazing blue colour.
The scenery, oak trees around it and a small bar make it an ideal place for weekend relaxations. Still, to our surprise, there were just a few visitors.




Our next stop was Saranda. As soon we could see the city we were shocked, unfortunately not in a positive way. I don’t know how the city looked like before but the recent building that is still taking place, is an unbelievable crime in terms of architecture, town planning and any form of aesthetics. Almost every house in the city is a hotel and all these hotels share the same appearance making Saranda a holiday resort of worst kind.
Unfortunately, as we were not traveling in peak of the season we were not able to experience, what people say, are good sides of the city, the summer atmosphere and excellent food.





To be continued...

Saturday, March 3, 2007

My little trip through Albania (1)

I host few posts written by my girlfriend, who visited me here in Tirana in the last 2 weeks.

It’s almost impossible go to Albania without prejudice, maybe an unfair statement, but for sure a true one. Regarding this, I was by no mean an exception.
Still, after spending here two weeks, mostly in Tirana, but also visiting places like Gjirokastra, Fier, Saranda, Butrint, Himara, Dhermi and Vlora most of my ideas about Albania changed.
The next few posts will be about these changes and to the little trip I did with Marco from 23rd till 25th of February - to all the beautiful and some not so beautiful things that we have seen and experienced.

Part 1
Travelling through Albania is for sure an unique experience.
If one accepts the fact that any comparison with other European countries really makes no sense and that it’s quite obvious to everybody that Albania is way undeveloped in terms of western Europe, having an interesting and fun travel is a piece of cake.
Therefore, bad roads, non-existing or illogical signalisation, lack of museum schedule and unbelievable ways of disposing garbage shouldn’t be seen as too annoying, but as an unique characteristics of Albania’s present state and it’s history.
Still visiting it in this state makes an interesting experience of a country that can easily charm you and will for sure make you laugh numerous times.
We started our trip from Tirana on Friday morning heading to Gjirokastra passing through Durres and Fier. The nice weather that was following us made our trip the more enjoyable. The natural scenery was wonderful, although sometimes spoiled by garbage disposed in strange and unbelievable ways.





We arrived to Gjirokastra late in the afternoon. Unfortunately the first scene that welcomed us were piles of garbage on the both sides of the road coming from Fier. Something that should be changed as fast as possible as a city as beautiful and fascinating as Gjirokastra doesn’t deserve such an entrance.
Gjirokastra is a home town of two important figures from Albanian history, Ismail Kadare, the writer and Enver Hoxa the communist leader. It’s famous for its ottoman architecture, the fascinating 19th century houses. These traditional houses can be found throughout the whole old town and together with steep streets they give the city an unbelievable and romantic atmosphere.
Best described by the words of Ismail Kadare:

Everything in this city was old and made of stone, from the streets and fountains right up to the roofs of its big houses, a century old, which were covered with stone tiles the colour of ash, like so many huge carapaces.
It was difficult to believe that under these hard shells the soft flesh of life thrived and was renewed.
It really was a very surprising city. You could be going along the street and if you wanted, you could stretch out your arm a bit and put your hat on a top of minaret.
Many things were unbelievable and a lot was dream-like.
It was difficult to be a child in this city.


Ismail Kadare, Kronike ne gur ("Chronicles in Stone"), Onufri, 2000.





Except the famous houses another interesting thing to see was the castle above the city with a wonderful view on Lunxheria mountains. On the castle terrace is a small plane for which the communist regime claimed was an American spy plane, forced down in 1957.





We were staying in one traditional house that was carefully turned into a beautiful small hotel and furnished in traditional style. The view from our window was absolutely wonderful.