All about Albania- London Evening Standard

With the Pope planning a visit to the once cut-off country, Tim Adler samples its eccentricities first hand

Stride along the seafront at Durrës, a seaside town an hour from the capital Tirana, and as you look up at hot peach and lime green hotels and apartment blocks you could be in a jolly cross between Blackpool and Miami. But then everything in Albania is a clash between something, which is what makes the country so hard to define. “Even for us it’s hard sometimes,” one Albanian told me. After all, what did I know about Albania before coming here — other than that Pope Francis is gracing the nation with a visit in September?
 Read more
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/all-about-albania-9545436.html