July 11 Durres Albania

 We've been to Albania before, about 10 years ago, and weren't impressed. Back then we stopped for just an afternoon, and that was more time than needed. This is a different port in Albania, new to us, so we'll take the tour and see the place.

 The excursion was to be a historical walking tour of Durres followed by a wine tasting. But, for scheduling reasons, we went to the wine tasting first, at 11 in the morning. It was a small Albanian winery (we actually went to a different winery first, but they weren't the right one) and they showed us a white wine followed by a red wine. Then a brandy, which was more like liquid fire than anything else. 

We then sat there for 45 minutes. Not sure why -- but the schedule must be followed, apparently. We did discover this fine hanging made up of wine corks. I found the wine tasting to be fairly pathetic attempt to stretch what would be a 2-hour walking tour into 4 hours. But I did see someone in the group purchase a bottle of wine. More people bought ice cream from them.

Now that the sun has reached its zenith and it's nice and hot outside, we begin our walking tour in downtown Durres. This is the Venetian Tower, constructed in the 5th century and modified/improved over the years. It's at the edge of the city walls closest to the harbor and had cannon to repel invaders. Today they welcome the cruise ship invaders.

 

 The city walls were stoutly constructed.

 

 We pass through a gate to enter the city.

 We stop at a barely excavated Roman amphitheater that could seat 20,000. The panorama shows what's there now.  They are apparently using it for some meeting/performance for substantially less than 20K people.

Continuing through the town there's a modern plaza

 

The Romans probably would have been OK with the fountain since they loved their baths.   

Ancient Roman marketplace 

Our final stop was the "Peeping Tourist" museum, dedicated to documenting the lengths the Communist government went to maintain surveillance on people visiting the country. They only allowed tourism from suitably socialistic countries but even then were paranoid enough to watch and listen to everything they could. The hotels were wired so no guest had any privacy.

 

The museum includes one of the 70,000 bunkers established by the paranoid government to shelter the population in the event of an attack (which never came). But once a month the sirens sounded and the citizens had to practice sheltering.

Inside the shelter watching the 4 minute subtitled documentary. It wasn't much of a museum, but they were trying to document the hideous Communist regime, and for that you have to give them props.

We walk to the bus for the trip back.  Rodon, the God of the Sea was guarding the bus stop. Rodon is the Neptune of the Balkans.