1 destination · 10 things to do

Albania

Tirana is the most surprising capital in Europe: a city that spent four decades sealed off under one of the harshest communist regimes on earth and has since painted itself in bright colours, filled its old party quarter with cafés and turned its Cold War bunkers into museums. Its heart is Skanderbeg Square, a vast pedestrian plaza paved with stone from every region of Albania, watched over by the mounted statue of the national hero, the frescoed Et’hem Bey Mosque and the Clock Tower. A few minutes away, Bunk’Art 2 and the House of Leaves tell the story of the secret police in the very places they worked, and the restored Pyramid, once a monument to the dictator Enver Hoxha, now has steps up its sloping sides for everyone to climb. Above the city, the Dajti Ekspres cable car rises to the forests of Mount Dajti, and at its foot lies Bunk’Art 1, Hoxha’s own nuclear bunker. Tirana is also the ideal base for Albania’s great day trips: the white Ottoman houses of Berat, Skanderbeg’s mountain stronghold at Kruja and the Roman amphitheatre and beaches of Durrës. This guide shows you what to book, how to get around, how many days to give it and where to stay, from a 23-floor tower on the main square to a garden hotel on the boulevard.