Authentic TIRANA - Where to Stay, Sweet Treats, Travel Tips 🇦🇱

[@dwaynewladyka577]

This was awesome. Cheers, Steve and Michelle!

[@Steve-Owens]

Thank you buddy, sorry for the short live stream today, I was having a bad day it seems LOL Cheers

[@ngatiramona]

💕💖💜🩵💙💚💛🧡❤️🥰 Dearest traveling duo Steve and gorgeous Michele!! Thank uou both for this incredibly informative and beautiful video. View iz amazing, and so glad you both are enjoying the bakeries.. wish we were there. 😊🥰 Lotsa love!🍰🥯🧁

[@AniJakupi]

Thank you mister about showing my neighborhood. Its very exquisite zone of Tirana .Have a great journey

[@Steve-Owens]

You’re welcome, thank you for watching...

[@michaelpound4738]

@@AniJakupi for me one of the best for foreigners to stay in...

[@alexodaini]

Beautiful video and tons of information.

[@Steve-Owens]

I really appreciate you saying that.

[@ChristineLloyd-h3l]

Hi Steve and Michelle. Great information - especially the cakes!! Interested in your trip around Albania as hope to be visiting next year and doing the Trans Dinarica cyle tour. Really excited about it! love to you both. xx

[@Steve-Owens]

Wow. Hope you have a wonderful time ☺️

[@durdis7334]

Enjoy the holidays in Albania greetings from New York City USA

[@Steve-Owens]

Thank you

[@staalmannen2522]

Really like your videos. I have Albanian friends in Ali Demi area. I like it there!! But also I enjoy the city center. Been to Albania many times, a country that captures the heart.

[@Steve-Owens]

@@staalmannen2522 indeed I'd does, thank you..

[@tracybower7645]

Hello Steve and michelle.i love mandarin cheese cake.nice apartment yous are staying in.hope the weather improves.🤗🤗

[@Steve-Owens]

@@tracybower7645 It hasn't improved much Tracy but the warmth of the Albanian people makes up for the winter chill.. 👍👋

[@qwc440]

9:30 Thats how most houses are in albania unless you get a 3+1 or do the house plan yourself the view is always on the parents bedroom, the living room is in the middle of house

[@Steve-Owens]

@@qwc440 Fascinating, is that so.. Thanks for insight.. 🙏👍

[@Kalajsi35]

Steve thank you so much for sharing these videos about my country! Some tips? Rent a car and visit Durres, Berat, Vlora, Saranda and Gjitokastra. Lots to see and lots of nice sights and food! Greetings from United States!

[@Steve-Owens]

Greetings, thank you for the tips.. All tips are welcome, if you can mention some more places, I am happy to research them.. Cheers Steve

[@brucewayne2773]

100% agreed to get a place outside the city center to see how the locals live as with any destinations for us too. Those desserts are delicious and dangerous for the A1C. Good to have a car to drive around.

[@Steve-Owens]

@@brucewayne2773 Glad to have you agree BW.. we picked up the car, no hitches.. lots more to see here me thinks.. 👍😘

[@brucewayne2773]

@ 👍❤️

[@YoucanNotadvance1]

Come in Vlore next and make sure to visit the historic city center, you can try the delicious local products at my mother's bakery!

[@michaelpound4738]

Hi, seen a few if your vids. Different to many. On the iblock, it is close to the Great Park but it is a walk from the air port bus and the connections to the bus centre. It is expensive but does have orestige and night life. However I used the bakery Ofurre Salaj} most days when I was there. Staying in this area you have better choice of fruit, vege, meat and fish. Turn left and the Big market shop is a lot cheaper than shops closer to the centre.. Try Vila Floso behind Furre Salaj.. You are also closer to the hospital and 5 Maj shopping Your proninciatikn of the language is good.. Try See Yeh.. For how are you.. We write So je... Enjoy befte mire.. So pleased that you are enjoying it there

[@Steve-Owens]

Thank you so much for those tips and your encouragement.. Steve

[@nailcutie03]

Life in the Bllok area remains deeply local. Mass tourism is still a relatively new phenomenon for us, so we haven’t yet adapted our behavior or started avoiding certain places. We simply go about our lives and move through the city as we always have. I belive that by staying outside the city center you are missing out on the real good food and pastries in Tirana 😝

[@Steve-Owens]

Thanks for sharing your perspective..

[@qwc440]

12:30 How long are you guys staying I can plan a trip that covers albania within the timeframe

[@Steve-Owens]

We have no fixed time, I was going to spend some time in the North but the weather in many of the places is snowing and may make it impossible for me (we're in Shkodër now but heading south soon). So we will probably stay more to the south after this..

[@qwc440]

@ I would have said Korca but It gets pretty cold there in the winter, Vlora might be the hottest. Still would recommend visiting them along side with Berat and Gjirokastra.

[@amazingthanks1604]

Hope you enjoy your stay there

[@Steve-Owens]

@@amazingthanks1604 we are doing so.. 👍 thanks 🙏

[@qwc440]

the best place is around the grand park of tirana, kodra diellit, liqeni thate If you've got the money around Teg and Farke Lake which are private or low rise apartments and If you also want something more affordable theres also komuna parisit which is alot cheaper than these and has the grand park/ blloku nearby

[@Steve-Owens]

@@qwc440 thanks that will prove useful to viewers I believe.. What is the district I am in, do you know it.. Thanks 🙏👍

[@qwc440]

@ Its called rruga dibres, first road before going to Dibra country, thats how some of the main bulevards are called, rruga durresit is the first road thats sends you to durres and elbasan etc etc.

[@mendjelire8392]

@@Steve-Owens Not sure which area you were staying at but it looks like the area east of Scanderbeg Square. That is the oldest part of Tirana where New Bazar and Selvia neighborhoods are. For your roads trips I would recommend you go to Elbasan (1 hour south-east of Tirana). It's one of the cheapest towns in Albania, it has a castle but what I like to do there is go to Rozafa Fish City (it is in Labinot 10 minutes from the center of Elbasan) for lunch. It is a fish processing factory that has a big restaurant (the best sea food restaurant in all of Albania, very, very cheap prices). It has a hotel, a cinema, a bar, a pool, an ice cream parlor and a playground for kids. The drive to Elbasan is one of the most beautiful in Albania. Kazerma e Cerenit is another great experience, in the edge of Dajti mountain. It is a farm and a restaurant (agritourism) which has been built in a communism era army barracks complex. Petrele Castle is 30 minutes from Tirana, on the way to Elbasan (great restaurants in the area too cheap prices as well). One hour north of Tirana it's the historic mountain town of Kruje where Scanderbeg ruled and fought three huge Ottoman armies from won.

[@qwc440]

@ It also used to be like blloku throughout communism, where the youth would go, when "democracy" came, because It was a good neighbourhood people started building houses on random which destroyed it and the youth moved to blloku, now you can see they are slowly destroying and building new ones. (Blloku in communism was only for the state members)

[@abc123ben]

First. And slow down with the cakes, Mr.

[@abc123ben]

Also, what type of car are you renting?

[@Steve-Owens]

We just picked it up, they upgraded as a little. It's a Hyundai, something? Nice little hatch/suv'ish. Wish us luck..

[@Steve-Owens]

That's a hard ask here Ben

[@abc123ben]

@@Steve-Owens How long have you got the car for?

[@Steve-Owens]

@abc123ben We took it for 2 weeks Ben.

[@albusha5150]

Sweets today in Albania are not as good as the sweets before 1990's. Back then, everything was made with purely bio ingredients and one of the main ingredients were egg whites or meringue as it's called. Nowadays, they make them with cream cheese, or milk cream etc, which by the way are not as organic as they were back then. There is a place in Tirana at the New Bazaar or Pazari i ri called Reka who make their pastries with meringue. If you're still in TIrana but plan to visit Shkoder they make two staple traditional deserts there: haxhimakulle and tespixhe. In English they can be pronounced as "hadjimakulle" and "tespidje."

[@Steve-Owens]

Thank you, I am In Shkodër and I have had a couple of delicious tespixhe over near the Lake. It's lovely here.. All the best Steve

[@albusha5150]

@@Steve-Owens how about haxhimakulle? And don't forget carp in tawa or tave krapi. Enjoy

[@Marga-m2n]

Hi to both of you I would be just the same and buy to many.

[@Steve-Owens]

@@Marga-m2n hi Marga.. I just don't have the discipline.. or perhaps I do 😂😆

[@u-two]

Albanian and Kosova are very safe places , 100% more safer then London

[@Steve-Owens]

Thank you, I don't know much about London.. 👍🙏

[@gabrielta1]

And all is great awaysome and great bla bla bla , the newer and ever thell you the tough, the newer want a conflict, the just are so damisch I mine what people are there…. No, silently no people like that and then so f…. Friendly about no conflict, the are not critical, the are not interesting of nothing, just cheap, food and drinks, the even don’t now where is for exemple Bulgaria or Nairobi, uff

[@Steve-Owens]

@@gabrielta1 crayon