The country is very poor, but the people are friendly. Couchsurfing did not work out too well for us in Albania, but we were actually brought into a random household one of our first nights. They gave us dry clothes while our own clothes dried, fed us more food than we needed, and did their best to communicate with us using the small amount of Italian one of the women knew.
It was the first and the last time I will eat cow lung - hopefully.
We stayed with an American while in the capital. The capital and a nearby town have some very unique points of interest. In 2007 George W. Bush visited the town of Fushe Kruja for a period of less than an hour. Because there had never before been an American president in Albania, the Albanians were ecstatic.
Years later they erected an enormous statue of Bush in the town square, and also named a street in the capital after him. I do not know if there are any other statues of him in the world, but if there are they are few.
Remember that I said Albania is strange? Well since it is a poor country, there are many odd things you can see. Probably my favorite was the day we drove past a man and his bear.
Because Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire almost to the end, there is some wonderful examples of Ottoman architecture in Albania.
Some kids we met in a mountain town overlooking the coast. They were very excited to meet us and insisted we take a photo.
The coast of Albania is very nice. In Italy and former Yugoslavia they are always complaining about how their beaches are dirty because of the Albanians. If this is true there is no sign of the garbage coming from Albania. All the beaches in Albania are pristine.
I would suggest Albania to anybody interested in an adventure and laying on a clean and quiet beach.
