In all the european comunist countries we used to find a balnearic town. They all are a special jewell in the Partie’s crown. This unique towns are figurated in order to provide a little breakdown in their rutine. The workers used to be rewarded sometimes with a holiday in one of those cities. In that time, these cities were kept as best as they could and nowadays, some of them, are in a worst situation as they used to be. About that point, we will write a post someday. [...]
So, Pogradeci IS ALSO a balnearic town, and was the most exclusive one, because was not specifically designed for the workers but for the Party members. It is also common in those regimes to have special areas sealed off from the public. The most famous example was the Berliner outsider town of Pankow in the DDR.
Pogradeci means literally “the city lying below the castle”. Nowadays it’s really difficoult to find out were the castle is… trully, we did’t realized about it. Pogradeci has 30.000 inhabitants… it’s a really quiet town. We don’t find much tall buildings, part of the city is a pedestrian zone (incredible!!), it’s surrounded by hills and it has got a really awesome afternoon life. Everyone, when it gets dark just take a promenade by the lake, just walking and talking. Our friend Matt shows us how to integrate us… you just have to say “Mirë?” (means good) and wait for the answer. Usually the answer is a simple “Mirë” but if the other guy is kind a good friend then you can start a short conversation.
Who is Matt? Matt is him (press the link)… naaah, is not him but our Matt is as cool as him. He hosted us in his house. We met him beacuse was a friend of KSay (find out who’s KSay). Both are US peace corps. And, because we are so thankfull of his hospitality, this post is dedicated to him!
The city lies on the lake Ohrid. On the other side of the lake we can find FYR Macedonia. In the lake we can find out a very unique fauna and flora. 80% of its species are endemic. We can also find the Ohrid trout, unique in the world and illegally fished by the Albanians. We can eat it in Pogradeci’s restaurants or we can just go out of the town and in the sore of the lake we will find boys selling fresh trouts. (trully, we didn’t eat any of them)
In Pogradeci we spent one day, and the next day we just go to Lin, a town by the lake before we drove up to the north. We highly recomend Pogredeci, is a very peacefull and charming town with some bars and restaurants (Luckily, not so many) and also a discoteq! It’s just a completelly different kind of albanian city.
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