Vlora, Albania | Travel Blog Ourlifeistravel.com

VLORA

First capital of Albania

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The light flair that remains after pronouncing the word Vlora breathes with the sea, delicious coffee and herbs. Indeed, the Albanian Vlora seemed to us to be a very green city, in some places directly drowning in green spaces. We ended up here passing "for a day", and tried to have time to see more of everything.

The caring inhabitants of Vlora do not stop and continue to decorate the city, carefully strengthening every tree.

We could only see one of the main streets connecting the key sights of the city with the embankment through the bars. A huge reconstruction was carried out here: the asphalt substrate was strengthened, the facades of nearby houses were renewed.

Gradually, we got to the main attraction of Vlora - the Independence Monument.

In 1912, the independence of Albania was proclaimed at this place for the first time, and Vlora became the first capital of the country. Therefore, it proudly bears the title of "First Capital", like Kharkov in Ukraine.

They treat the monument with great concern, since they have allocated special workers who are engaged in maintaining order near the monument. And literally 20 meters away you can see the remains of the ancient fortress wall. The city is very ancient, since Vlore was known as the ancient port of Avalon 2500 years ago. And, judging by the remains of the walls, it was one of the important outposts on the coast of the Ionian and Adriatic seas. These seas meet each other precisely near Vlora, so those who want to relax on two seas at once come here.

We love to photograph various art objects in the cities we visit. We did not ignore the kind and romantic murals of Vlora.

One of the tourist purposes when traveling to Albania are pillboxes (long-term firing points). They are often depicted even in tourist guides. Several decades ago, Albania went through a stage of almost complete isolation from the world. And, to protect against potential enemies, a specific form was chosen - pillboxes. According to the plan, they were supposed to be in every courtyard, where the family, hiding in this concrete fortification, could fire on the attackers. Almost the entire budget of the country was spent on the construction of hundreds of thousands of bunkers, therefore, to save money, most residents were forbidden to use any achievements of household appliances, buy imported clothes, and women were even banned from cosmetics.

According to general estimates, about 700 thousand such fortifications were built, and they were especially densely built along the borders and on the coast, because it was from there that an attack was expected.

We were able to find pillboxes in Vlora even in the very center of the city; near a vocational school, a cluster of three concrete "balls" with loopholes was discovered at once.

Since the government changed over time, and the enemy did not appear in the battle, many pillboxes are now used for practical needs: they store food there, keep cattle, and in some places they are turned into hostels for tourists.

Of the monuments in the city center, we can still highlight the sculpture of Ismail Kemali , the first head of state and national hero of Albania.

Coming out to the embankment, we immediately noted its neatness and the ferry on the pier. This ferry carries passengers to Italy, to the town of Brindisi. In order not to explain for a long time what this place is, just write: Brindisi is located right on the "heel" of the Italian "boot", not far from the city of Lecce. Schedule and approximate prices, if you want to look from Vlora to Italy - here .

What deserves special attention are the innovative waterfront benches. They are powered by built-in solar panels and provide free Wi-Fi. And if you open the black lid at the end of the bench, you will find a USB port that allows you to charge your gadgets. Dubai, with its palm trees handing out Wi-Fi on the beach, is not that far from Vlora ;-)

The entire embankment looks freshly cleaned with evenly planted palms. It can be seen that the city administration is making a huge stake on the tourism potential of Vlora and is preparing to meet huge crowds of tourists.

A little surprised by the beach of Vlora, or rather the color of the sand. It is very dark there and in color, it slightly resembles cement. From this color, the water, when the sea is rough, acquires a brown hue. For those who like swimming in azure and clear water, we recommend the pebble beach in the village of Radhime , 8 kilometers south of Vlora. The purity of the water there is incredible.

Walking in the center of Vlora, we also came across the city theater, photographed either the pool, or the fountain with 4 balls, and also stumbled upon the local K.I.T.

We visited Kievsky K.I.T. "Nova Poshta" and, look in our INSTAGRAM comparison is clearly not in favor of Vlora ;-)

While in Vlora, one cannot but look at the famous Muradiye mosque, which was built in 1542. This small mosque has stood on this street for almost 500 years. Visually, with its aesthetics, it resembles the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, although the dimensions are of course different ...

The peculiarity of the location of the "Muradie" mosque is that it stands on an "island" surrounded by highways. Approaching it is quite an extreme business and requires psychological endurance; a bunch of cars will honk you, reminding you who is the boss on these roads. We made a couple of attempts, but left the idea of getting closer as unsuccessful ;-)

Albanian pensioners play cards and dominoes in parks, probably recalling 1997, when local financial pyramids collapsed in Albania and the country, having lost $ 2 billion, found itself in "financial ruins". Throughout Albania, demonstrations of defrauded investors began, which ended in clashes in large cities (including Vlora) and the seizure of weapons depots. These uprisings ended with the decision of the UN Security Council to send a contingent led by Italy to control the distribution of humanitarian aid. The result of the confrontation was the death of one and a half thousand people, and another 3500 were injured.

Also, these pensioners know about jakmarya - a medieval tradition of blood feud, when any man in the family can be killed by a rival family, and therefore never leaves his home, since the law of blood revenge prohibits killing a "blood feud" in his house. And the maintenance of the family becomes the task of women: mother, wife, sisters, since they are freed from jakmarya. There are now more than 600 such families in the country, and UNICEF has even developed a program to educate Albanian children from these families at home. But out of 2000 children under the "pressure" of blood feud, only 200 signed up to study. This is such a difficult, mysterious country trying to break out into the 21st century.

When you arrive in Albania - never, do you hear, never miss watching the sunsets from the shore. It is truly an indescribable sight when the sun, sea and mountains play with each other, creating pictures of unprecedented beauty.