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I had nearly three hours to spare before my flight, thanks to the efficient security process and border control at Tirana Airport, giving me a chance to visit the airport lounge. I was pleased to see that it was relatively quiet and there was plenty of seating available. Note that not only has he got the country’s main square named after him, he also has this lounge, I wonder which Skanderbeg would be most pleased about.

Some of the food and drink options, it’s fair to say that the range was extensive.

I was glad the person in front asked where the cups were for the coffee machine, it transpired they’re in the machine. It’s a long time since I’ve experienced a coffee machine which uses plastic cups and they come out extremely hot which adds some jeopardy to the whole arrangement, it’s good to need to use reflexes whilst collecting a drink.

The food and drink I had, with lots of fresh food alongside the pastries and baked goods. There was one beer and numerous different Fantas, which combined to surprise and delight. For the sake of completeness, I should mention that the beer was the Peja Pilsner from Birra Peja, a brewery from Kosovo, and it was clean, crisp and unexciting.

The staff in the lounge were friendly, efficient and very much on top of the cleanliness and customer service. The wifi worked, although they had a quite a reliance on low seating and I would have personally preferred some more higher seating, but that’s hardly much of an issue. I liked the availability of power points, the variety of food and the laid-back nature of the lounge. A very positive location to spend time in before the flight.

The Skanderbeg Monument is the proud centrepiece of Skanderbeg Square, a solid bronze reminder that Albania once had a national hero who wasn’t afraid of a bit of a fight. Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg (1405-1468) was a fifteenth century nobleman who ditched the Ottomans after they’d trained him and instead spent decades leading a resistance movement against them. For that, he gets to be put on a horse in Tirana as the nation’s hero and he was also widely respected amongst western nations at the time for helping to slow down the Ottoman expansion into Europe.

The monument itself went up in 1968, marking the 500th anniversary of Skanderbeg’s death. He’s shown on horseback, mid-stride, looking suitably heroic, wearing full armour and clutching a sword. There’s no mistaking the message that this is Albania’s ultimate national symbol, the man who stood up to an empire and inspired a sense of independence that Albanians still cling to today.

The rather hard to read memorial stone by the monument. Of course, because this is Albania, there’s also a bit of irony as the monument was erected during the communist period, when national pride was carefully curated by the regime. Skanderbeg was recast as the people’s freedom fighter rather than the nobleman he actually was, but his importance wasn’t lessened. Enver Hoxha, the corrupt communist leader, ensured that a statue of him was erected as the centrepiece of the square after he died, although that was torn down when communism fell apart. There’s an interesting story about where that statue ended up….

Skanderbeg Square is the beating heart of Tirana, though it feels more like the lungs on a quiet day, expansive, calm and just a little surreal. It’s named after Albania’s national hero, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, the 15th-century warrior who spent his life resisting the Ottoman Empire. His statue, naturally, takes centre stage, and it’s one of those heroic bronze figures that makes you feel slightly inadequate about how you’ve been spending your time. More on this statue in the next post though.

The square itself is enormous and it’s been redesigned in recent years with big, open stone spaces and a few splashes of greenery. It has the slightly odd quality of being both monumental and oddly minimal, which I think is part of its charm, especially now they’ve booted the cars out of it during the recent redevelopment. It’s ultimately a huge space with a lot of nothing going on at the centre. The history of this square started in 1925 when Armando Brasini was handed the task of shaping the new and shiny Albanian capital. Brasini, an Italian architect with a flair for the dramatic, came up with a grand Neo-Renaissance vision and his work was later continued by Florestano Di Fausto, who refined the Neo-Renaissance theme with what could be described as articulate angular solutions. Then came 1939 and the Italian invasion of Albania, and, as often happens when new regimes arrive, so did a new architect. Gherardo Bosio stepped in with a fresh master plan, tweaking the original designs to suit the occupiers’ tastes.

The mosaic at the National History Museum is called “The Albanians” (Shqiptarët) and it dominates the façade. It was created in 1981, during the height of the communist era, and is essentially a giant socialist-realist postcard in mosaic form. The mosaic had started to fall into disrepair, but in 2023 the restored version was unveiled which was partly funded by the European Union. There were calls for it to be removed, but this was a part of history that it was decided to preserve.

It’s a curious architectural cocktail as it’s Ottoman, fascist-era Italian, Soviet-inspired communist and modern Albanian, all happily coexisting in one giant open space. It shouldn’t work, but I think that it does, mostly because Tirana has decided to stop apologising for its past and just embrace the whole lot. The yellow building in the middle is the Tirana International Hotel and the old looking building to the right of that is the Downtown One Tower. Mostly hidden by the trees on the right is the National Opera House.

On the left is the Bank of Albania building, which was constructed in the 1930s, and in the centre of the photo is a skyscraper currently under construction.

The square is really also the unofficial stage for whatever Tirana decides to celebrate, protest or showcase. It’s a larger space than I had anticipated and there could be a little more seating and shady areas, but it’s all quite glorious and an architectural jumble which comes together quite nicely.