Friday, April 26
Our traditional (and bountiful) breakfast was set in the
hotel’s lovely courtyard this morning, amid olive trees and wandering
cats. Then, it was off to the Rozafa
fortress, which looms above the town. On
the main road through town, we encountered four horses foraging from a roadside
dumpster. Enea says that, since the men
of a local family were killed in a feud with another family, their horses have
been left to roam unclaimed and unattended.
The castle commands views of three rivers and a lake and was
an Ilyrian stronghold until taken by the Romans in 167 BC and since held by
Venetians and the Ottomans. The Ottoman
assault involved the melting of local church bells to build cannons on an
adjacent hill, from which shrapnel-filled cannon balls and flaming tar-filled mortars
were fired at the fortress. As we walked
through the three yards (commercial, residential and military) of the fortress,
Enea would stop and pick up shrapnel embedded in the ground and nails, which --
along with clay roof tiles – were all that was left of the burning structures
within. The fortification also contains
the ruins of a church/mosque/mass grave, the Ottoman commander’s residence, and
many wells that were part of the water system of the castle. The nearby border of Macedonia is visible on
a nearby hill and in the 1913 the Macedonians laid siege to the castle, with the
resulting starvation and cholera forcing the evacuation of the site.
Leaving the castle, we encountered a political protest which
almost prevented our access to the bridge which was our only way out of
town. We were almost the last car
allowed to pass as the demonstrators massed to block the road to the line of traffic
behind us. As we drove on, cars entering
town were stopped and for many miles, we encountered police cars staging along
our route, and then racing to the scene.
During our drive to Durres, Enea talked at length about the
origins of the protests, which have been ongoing throughout the country for
most of a year. The opposition
Democratic Party has been protesting against elections rigged on a massive
scale to maintain the ruling Socialist Party’s power, and the involvement of
organized crime with prominent politicians and ministers in this effort has
risen to a level of systemic corruption. This discussion led Enea to tell us about his
days as a university student in the early 90s, when student protests were among
the many forces that led to the fall of the dictatorship. Subsequently, with a new, inexperienced government,
a collapsed economy, a starving population and outbreaks of violence, Enea and
his family, ethnic Greeks from the south of Albania, fled to Athens for several
years. His education was interrupted and
he found work on a mushroom farm (underground) and his father (a physician) and
other family members worked in greenhouses. We have repeatedly found that traveling in countries
of the former Soviet bloc has fascinated and amazed us, stunned us with our
lack of true understanding of the realities of life for so many in our own
lifetimes, and left us with enormous admiration for the endurance and resilience
of peoples who have suffered so greatly.
By late morning, we arrived at Durres, an early capital of
Albania and a strategically and economically important location since
antiquity. We visited the excellent
Archeological Museum, where Enea used the exhibits as “show and tell” examples
of the area’s history. The original
Ilyrian inhabitants were an important source of wheat and agricultural
resources for the Greeks, who colonized the area, established trading
relationships, and imported their language, art, customs and culture. The Greeks were followed by the Romans, who
crossed the Adriatic and established Durres as a terminus of the Egnatian Road,
which led to Thessalonika and ultimately to Constantinople. The Roman influence, too, was felt in the
language, culture, aqueducts, glass making and roads they brought to their
expanding empire.
From the museum, we walked through 5th- century
walls (which failed to stop the invading Ostragoths who laid waste to the city in
the 700s) a short distance to the 2nd- century Roman amphitheater,
which has been only partially excavated.
Because Durres has been continuously occupied, much of the original
structure has been treated as a source of building material for the expanding
town. What is visible, though, reveals a
significant amount of information about the structure of the arena and its
uses. The visible walls reveal a
construction method that combined the use of limestone rocks and a type of
Roman cement threaded with layers of terracotta bricks. The bricks, which had more flexibility than
the stone, provided some level of stability in this earthquake-prone
territory. The ground-level galleries
housed gladiators and animals, but also burial grounds and small chapels, one
of which has been excavated; it contains Albania’s only wall mosaics, probably
dating from the 11th century.
When we stopped for lunch in a restaurant across from the
harbor, Enea checked on the latest news from the morning protest in
Shkodra. We were amazed to see video of
the bridge we’d crossed packed full of demonstrators and grateful that we had
not gotten caught up in a long delay.
As we left Durres, we took in the local effort to brighten
drab architecture – apartment blocks painted in multicolored polka dots! Much of the rest of the Durres seaside is
occupied by miles of apartments used as vacation rentals for Kosovars and
Macedonians, who (over)crowd the area during the summer months; Albanians have largely
abandoned the local beaches there and moved on to the south.
Our afternoon drive south and inland brought us to Berat,
where we walked through its hilltop castle.
Though the museum of the icon master Onufri, located in a former church
within the fortress, had just closed for the day, we did walk through the
castle, which is still inhabited, and learned a bit of its history from the
original Ilyrian settlement in the 7th century BC through the usual
progression of conquerors from Philip of Macedonia, the 2nd- century
Romans, Byzantine Empire, Slavs, Sicilians, Ottomans and a dizzying array of
others. The inhabitants of the castle were Orthodox Christians (There were 20
churches, with one mosque for the occupying Ottomans.) The Christians were not forced to convert,
but through a powerful set of benefits offered to Muslims and hardships imposed
on the Christian population, many did. We
may return to the castle in the morning to visit the museum and learn more.
The historic old town of Berat, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site, sits on the banks of the Osum River and climbs the rocky hill below the
fortress. The classic view of the town
from the riverside makes clear the reason for Berat’s designation as the City
of a Thousand Windows. We enjoyed that
view, then walked along the riverside pedestrian promenade and city park, lined
with bars and sidewalk cafes, and stopped for a bite to eat.
Our digs tonight are in a guest house in the old town. It was once a private home and now has just four
rooms, a lovely small courtyard, great Wi-Fi, a modern bathroom in our big,
traditional room with a fireplace – and Netflix!
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