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First day in Georgia: arriving at 2 am, setting up wifi/VPN/AI command center, the errand circuit (two pharmacies, a Magti SIM, a metro card, currency exchange), getting lost and finding an Orthodox church and a quiet park, and the first grocery haul in an alphabet I can’t read.
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7-senses hotel review of We Love Tirana Center 2BR Apartment in Tirana, Albania. Scoring sound, touch, taste, aroma, sight, sanctuary, and wander instinct.
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The limbo between Albania and Georgia: chaotic check-in at Tirana airport, a hidden business lounge with all-Albanian breakfast, a 10-hour Istanbul layover with a surprisingly good schnitzel at BigChefs, lounge-hopping (three lounges, including a $40 Kepler Club shower), and boarding at 9:55 pm for a 1:15 am arrival in Tbilisi.
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Albania’s cities delivered the most consistent 5G speeds of any country we’ve tested — 13 urban locations clustered between 234 and 365 Mbps with Vodafone Albania. But leave the city, and the mountains take it all back: sub-10 Mbps downloads and near-zero uploads in the valleys. The real headline, though, is the border failure that…
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Three final days in Tirana: a last massage at Lotus Spa, cleaning the apartment, and the definitive ‘Best of Tirana’ — Tymi, Delibros, Vila 7 pizza, Mon Chéri coffee, Berat, Lake Ohrid, Albanian Nights, and the bakery a block away. Plus a farewell to Albania after three weeks.
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A day trip to Kruja: the 14th-century Bektashi Temple of Sari Salltiku on a cliff edge, the fortress that withstood three Ottoman sieges and outlasted Mehmed the Conqueror by ten years, Skanderbeg’s 500-year-old olive tree, and the last souvenir run through the Old Bazaar.
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A maintenance day in Tirana: a 1,500 Lek haircut and beard trim, a bakery with seven kinds of bread that all turned out to be the same excellent loaf (the ‘Curry Principle’), and planning the final day trip to Kruja Castle.
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A day trip to Berat, Albania’s UNESCO-listed ‘City of a Thousand Windows’: Illyrian pottery from the 7th century BCE, a castle burned by Rome and rebuilt by Byzantines, Albanian musaka at Moyo, Belshi Lake, caramel ice cream under a palm tree, and the road back at summer’s end.
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A rest day that became a real estate investigation: two 30-story towers rising in Tirana, and a developer who thinks a 3-bedroom apartment is worth €800K. Lunch was a Greek lamb sandwich. Sunday was fried chicken and packing for Berat.
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I meant to pull 7,500 Lek. I pulled 75,000. What followed: an honest exchange house (Iliria’98), the magnificent Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection, a spa recovery, and a peppery Kosovo sausage at Tymi that was one of the best grilled meats in Tirana.