Hotel Charcuterie Tray

Almost every time we travel, we end up making a charcuterie board in our hotel room. It's gotten so much so that Andreas packs a cutting board and knife. This examplar is from our trip to Tirana.

 

Tirana in Sunlight

 

Tirana in daylight. Not quite as pretty as night.

Meh Tirana Lunch

We stopped for lunch in a little shopping area inside the main citadel. The food was okay but not great. 

 

More Nighttime Tirana

This is the entrance to Bunk'ArtI at night. Looks pretty cool. Lots of Tirana looks fantastical at night.

 

Tirana at Night

We walked around Tirana one evening while we were there. Andreas got some lovely photos.

 

Watching the Detectives

This place has a lot of exhibits about the testing and use of chemical weapons in Albania - and the spying on people. They have a regular family living room set up with a spy area right next, showing how everything was bugged.

 

Friendly Neighborhood Snitch

Bunk'Art 1 is a history of the 20th century internal security apparatus of Albania. Various rooms have the early history. Lots of narrow corridors and bits of old electric spy devices dot the place. Then you get to the uniformed mannequin with the gas mask and you realize this really was a place. A scary place where they spied on everyone under Hoxha.

 

Bunk'Art 2

The little pillbox in the middle of Tirana is the entrance to an underground bunker built for bigwigs of the Hoxha regime. You go down some steps and get to the psychedelic entrance.

More Bunkers

Exterior of Bunk'Art 1 again and ... bunkers in their unkempt state in a national forest just outside Tirana. These little bunkers dot the Albanian countryside everywhere.

 

There Is Art

Despite being billed as an art museum, Bunk'Art 1 has very little art. It's mainly a history museum and needs to keep that purpose. One piece we saw installed in a stairwell is this.