[Apr. 2024] I had wanted to go to Albania for a long time.
When I first wanted to go, the country was still a communist country, and I remember an acquaintance who visited at the time giving me a handmade bag as a souvenir.
However, there were few tours at that time, and people criticized me for wanting to go to such a poor country, so I put it off.
After some time passed, the next time I thought about it was just before the COVID-19 outbreak.
We bought a plane ticket, but gave up because the COVID-19 situation worsened.
So, this time, the third time was a charm.
We moved to Italy in March, and wanted to experience what an Italian tour was like, so we decided to join an 8-day tour by a company called Boscolo.
It seems to be a fairly well-known tour company in Italy.
A knapsack and two water bottles were sent to us in advance.
We had to make our own way to the hotel, and the meeting place was a hotel in Tirana.
However, there was a staff member waiting at the Milan airport, who said, “Please call and talk to us if you need anything.”
By the way, at the Milan airport, when we were checking in, the tour conductor of the Japanese group made his tour members cut in front of the long line where everyone was getting annoyed, and we got into a bit of an argument.
I wonder if they think that things that are not allowed in Japan are allowed overseas, and I get really angry at these bad tour conductors.
When I asked the name of the company, he avoided looking at me and said, “I’m sorry, please go ahead.”
After we got on the plane, everything went smoothly and we changed at Vienna to fly to the capital, Tirana.
At the airport, we met a middle aged lady holding up a card with our names on it.
Her only role was to get us into a taxi.
When my husband said to her, “Albania seems to be very popular now,” she replied, “I wonder why people want to come here. I’m happy to earn money, but the tourism industry is developing too quickly and it’s gone too far.”
It felt like a damper on the start of our trip, but I later realised that her words expressed the current situation in Albania.
I should have come earlier.
We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, a global chain hotel.
It was mediocre.
We were hungry, so we ate some mediocre chicken at the hotel and waited for the meeting time.
As expected, most of the tour members we met at 7:30 pm were elderly, and including us there were a total of 12 people.
The tour leader was a big man who does not care about his appearance.
