Durres is a small, more cluttered town, but still a sprawl of ugly communist apartment buildings. Unlike Tirana, it has ancient history to show off - as if you would be here looking for ancient history, but I'm not one to judge that. The touted "Roman Ampitheatre" may as well be a gravel pit. The old Byzantine walls are pretty dull, the archaeology museum was nowwhere to be found, and a few stray remnants of Roman pillars had spray paint all over them. There is a nice cosmopolitan shopping street, though, surprisingly clean with boutiques along it. Some more "power to the people" statues, and of course the port. From a distance, the old home of King Zog and the lighthouse looked ugly, and to reach them required a long winding walk up a hill where the soldiers will not let you photograph it, as far as I can read.







There is some Italian presence here in Durres, though - mostly an exchange of Albanian families taking tours to Italy, and maybe a little bit of the other way around. Durres might even see a reasonable number of Italian tourists. There are also Italian soldiers roaring around in Hummers, possibly acting as customs guards to prevent another massive influx of Albanian emigrants - there have been a few waves of Albanians heading for Italy without plans of returning to their home country, and thus Italy now holds a significant number of Albanians.








Durres might hold some interest for Italian tourists looking to do a little inexpensive shopping, which explains why this city seems better off than Tirana. There is a boardwalk with some carnival rides to keep the kids occupied, and it surprised me to hear them playing Turkish music on these stock western rides. On the minibuses I have heard middle eastern music mixed with frequent American pop songs, and even the older folks seem to enjoy the new singles from Ricky Martin and Britney Spears. Possibly the only people on the planet over 30 who do.

Finding all of this not incredibly exciting I hopped a bus to Fier, to keep me occupied for the Afternoon. Durres was worth the half a day it took to see it, and I may be back here before I fly out. However, all of the real archaeological sights seem to be in the southern half of the country, and to there I go.

Fier and Appolonia



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