Pyramid of Tirana and plenty of Aperol

Another 9.30am start and a late breakfast for us; I pretty much had a child’s breakfast of crepes and Nutella, but it was delicious!

We started the day by visiting Et’hem Bey Mosque which was started construction back in 1791 and was finally finished in 1821. It is a beautiful mosque with frescoes outside and in the portico. The mosque closed under communist rule, but reopened in 1991 when 10,000 people attended without permission from the authorities and the police did not interfere. 



Our next stop was the Pyramid of Tirana, which is going through refurbishment to be an IT centre for young people which focuses on computer programming, robotics and start ups. The pyramid was originally opened in 1988 as the Enver Hoxha museum, but after the collapse of Communism, it was repurposed and eventually used as a base for NATO during the 1999 Kosovo War. It then went into disrepair and was going to be demolished had it not been for the citizens of Tirana. It hasn’t reopened yet, but you can climb up the steps to the top, and there are decent views of the city. Naturally, we chose to climb it when it was 33 degrees and there was no shade at all.






Because of our late start, it was already time for the football. We decided to go to a sports bar, but had the iPad to watch it as we couldn’t find anywhere that would show the game. It was either an Irish bar or the Duff Sports Bar, how could I resist Homer Simpson, plus the toilets made us laugh! Shame the result didn’t go our way, but we enjoyed ourselves nevertheless.




We left Duff Bar, but it was still too hot, so made our way back to the pedestrian area which is built around the fortress walls. After a few more Aperol Spritz and some chicken pieces and fries, I was starting to fall asleep and needed a coffee. We decided to walk back to the cafe that we went to with the guide, and came across a whole new part of the city with lots of cafes, bars and restaurants absolutely full of people. We sat at a free table outside a cafe and had a Turkish coffee with medium sweetness; it was like tar mixed with sugar, but it woke me up! Plus it was only £1.27 for two.



Our final stop of the night was a cafe by Skanderbeg Square, we spotted it the night before and it looked reasonably good, plus it was busy with locals. We only had one drink each before heading back to the hotel via the “I love t” sign. Tomorrow is our last day of the holiday as well as the last tour, so we thought an early night might be a good idea - after all the Aperol, I expect to sleep like a baby!






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