Finally, the weekend!
Quick breakfast, then headed out to explore the city. The target was Skanderbeg Square, the center of Tirana’s downtown area, dedicated to the Albanian folk hero and edged by most of the other culturally-significant buildings in town — the opera house, the national historical museum, the city hall.
We stopped to grab some drinks and snacks at a cafe in front of the opera house, and H was introduced to her new espresso freddo replacement, the Citro Spritz. (A little more chi-chi than the two-euro espresso shot, but still tasty, and just as enjoyable as the weather heats up.) Then we wandered around the parks on the southern edge of the square, taking in the contrast between the older, starker Communist-era buildings and the new, modern construction that appears to be ongoing in about a dozen different high-rises.
It finally got dark and we headed back to the apartment, intending to stop and get dinner at a restaurant along the way, but ultimately deciding instead to just call it a night and grab takeaway or something from the grocery store.
(Having a city to walk around and explore is exciting but it’s also a little tiring.)