Destination Guide
48 Hours in Tirana: The Balkan Capital Everyone's Quietly Underestimating
The first thing that surprises you in Tirana is the color. Every building from the communist period is painted in graphic blocks of yellow, magenta, teal, deep blue. Edi Rama, who's now the prime minister of Albania, was the mayor here in the early 2000s, and he ordered the paint job himself when he ran the city. Twenty years later, the colors still hit you walking out of the airport taxi. The second thing that surprises you is the prices. A flat white at a serious cafe costs €1.20. A two
· 7 min read
