destinations
Albania's Evening Promenades: Where Every City Walks Its Xhiro
Every Albanian city keeps one street for the evening xhiro. This is the map of them all: Vlora's Lungomare, Durrës's Vollga, Korça's boulevard, and where Tirana walks.
Durres
travel-tips
Day Trips from Tirana: Eight Escapes, and How to Do Them Without a Car
Krujë for 150 lekë, Durrës every twenty minutes, a cable car up a mountain, and a cave with a bear's skull in it. Eight day trips from Tirana with real transport details.
history
750,000 Bunkers? How Albania Became the World's Most Fortified Country
Albania planned 750,000 Cold War bunkers and actually built over 170,000. The story behind the world's most fortified country and what its bunkers became.
culture
Xhiro: The Albanian Evening Walk That Every Town Still Does
Every evening, Albanians fill their town's main boulevard for the xhiro, a slow, aimless walk that is equal parts social ritual, fashion show, and way of life.