My flight to Tirana in Albania was via Bergamo in Italy – or ‘Milan-Bergamo’ as Ryanair calls it – as if Bergamo is a mere suburb of Milan and not a separate city of 120,000 people, more than fifty kilometres away. Flying over the Alps into Bergamo gave impressive views – not a cloud in the sky with mountains, towns and lakes fully visible from the airplane forty thousand feet in the sky. It was Friday November 8th, 2024, and for the first time in my life I was visiting the Balkan nation of Albania. Landing at 11.10 in Bergamo I had a four-hour layover until 15.20. My friend G was waiting for me in Tirana – he had arrived from Heathrow a few hours before I landed.
Skanderberg Square, Tirana
The internet had warned me that public transport from the airport to the city centre was sporadic, so we had booked a transfer to our apartment with our landlord at a decent price. What a very friendly and talkative man. He gave us a running commentary about the buildings we saw on the way to the city centre. He told us that the route to the airport was like a continuous building site as Italian investors were swooping in to erect buildings now that the Albanian government has decided that Albania needs to become Mediterranean tourist hotspot.
Our apartment was located about fifty metres from the city’s main Skandenberg Square. We dined that evening at the restaurant Ceren Ismet Shehu in the grounds of the Toptani Castle just off the Square. This was a traditional Albanian restaurant with a wood fire burning in the middle. A very tasty and very meat heavy dining experience. The Toptani Castle has become a nightlife area so after our meal we enjoyed a few glamourous cocktails for about a quarter of the price you’d pay in Ireland (one hundred Albanian lek is worth about one euro).
Our plane touched down in Ibn Battouta Airport in Tangier at 9.50pm on Saturday night so we hopped into a taxi driven by a friendly man named Omar and asked him to call our host Mohamed. We were going to be staying on the narrow laneways of the walled old town (medina) of Tangier so he had to give Omar instruction where to drop us so he could take us to our lodgings. The medina is inaccessibly by car. Our house was an old-style house with a rooftop courtyard and blue tiles on the walls. It was already quite late when we arrived, so we headed over the coast (about ten minutes’ walk away) for an evening meal before heading to bed for an early night. There was walking to be done the following day and we wanted to be fresh.
Break from a busy day, Tangier
The following day gave us sunshine so after a quick outdoor coffee on a terrace in a medina café with indoor smoking and without tourists, we walked down to the coast (La Corniche) again for a breakfast looking at the sea. Based on my judgement (and Google Maps) the landmass in the distance must have been the southernmost tip of Spain. Tangier is located on the Tingitan peninsula and is on the coast where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea. We took a walk along the beach where we spied some camels in the distance giving rides to tourists for a cash payment. A friendly local dog approached us and sat with us for half an hour before heading on his way. I noticed that he had a yellow plastic earring. I wondered what that was. Lunch was consumed outdoors where I had a lamb shawarma – a dish traditional to the Middle East but seeing as Morocco is an Arab-Berber country the cuisine is similar. Moroccan cuisine is very tasty but not new to me. Having lived in Amsterdam – a city with a large Moroccan population- for many years I know my Moroccan dishes.
My plan to visit Madrid in December 2022 was thwarted, when standing at the gate in Dublin Airport, ready to board at 7pm an announcement was made, to inform us that due to weather conditions our flight was cancelled. Disappointed, as I had been looking forward to visiting the Spanish capital for the first time since 2006. This December another flight was booked – for our winter wanderings we’d be spending three days in Madrid followed by three days in Tangier in the northernmost tip of Morocco. Sunshine at this time of year is a great means of cheering oneself up in the Irish grey season.
‘Guernica’ by Picasso at the Reina Sofia Museum
The Ryanair flight from Dublin to Madrid was non-eventful and we landed at 2pm, whereby we each acquired a ten-ticket metro pass for fourteen euros and followed the internet’s instructions on how to access our apartment. Lunch, en route in Chinatown involved Szechuan chicken and rice. Out apartment was located on the edge of the city centre so theoretically it was possible to walk to the heart of the city. We took the metro that evening to Gran Via which was festooned in Christmas lights. We enjoyed a few drinks in the Chueca district which seemed to have calmed down from the riotous party district it had been twenty years ago. A more likely story is that Chueca has remained the same and it is I that has become more sedate. We dined on pizza at ‘ThatsAmore’ – a pizzeria owned and run by an Italian man. Rather tasty.
My first trip to Italy as a tourist was in February 2020, just as the world was about to shut down. My first holiday to that country was a revelation. I found Rome to be enchanting. Since then I have averaged two trips a year – never to the same place. Italy is a country where you can pick any spot, and it will be a delight. My favourite place to visit thus far is Venice. But not Venice as most know it. I was lucky enough to visit during the harsh lockdown of 2020 when international travel was strongly discouraged, meaning that my flight to that city was empty and the tourist throngs were conspicuous by their absence.
Palermo
This year I decided that it was time to visit Sicily. . Or rather the Ryanair sale for a return flight in August decided for me. Frugality is a necessity when it comes to travel, as otherwise I would be bankrupt. My return flight cost 140 euros. I was planning to travel alone but as often happens I had an inquiry from a regular travel companion. I wouldn’t mind at all – I like solo travel but given the choice having a co-conspirator is very much appreciated.
Sicily is much larger than I had imagined and has a population of almost five million people. How would we decide our itinerary. Some research indicated that a few stops would be possible. We decided on three days in the capital Palermo; two days in the second city Catania in the shadow of Mount Etna; and our final two days on the island of Ortigia in the ancient Greek city of Siracusa.
Our flight landed on Saturday evening at 8pm and we reached our enormous apartment. It was one of those high ceilinged, old, Italian houses with a complicated floor plan and random doors leading to nowhere. We had an early night. In the morning we had an early start. We were being collected from our apartment at 8am for a day tour. Two weeks earlier I had booked a full day excursion to the town of Agrigento in the south of the islands to see the Valley of The Temples.
In January of this year, Aer Lingus had a sale. I checked out the destinations and found a six day return trip to Chicago for 395eur in September. That was a steal so I booked it immediately. Having travelled to Chicago a quarter of a century earlier, I did not have any abiding memories of the city. That earlier excursion had been in August and was three days at the end of a fortnight’s journey to New York, Boston and Chicago. I remember the stifling humidity of August, my friend urgently requiring a toilet while in Boystown after a burger went down the wrong way, and me getting trapped in a different toilet.
Back in the twentieth century I had two regular traveling companions with whom I travelled each year. Usually at the end of our holiday we needed a break from each other and we’d take an ‘alone day’ where we’d do our own thing and then meet for dinner and drinks later. I think I went to a bookshop. I selected a diner for lunch and had a sandwich. After my meal I repaired to the restroom, to a cubicle. Unfortunately the door would not unlock for me after my business was finished, and I ended up calling for assistance from the laughing waitress, while being a luminous shade of puce. I remember her comment ‘don’t worry, you’re not the first that’s happened to.’ With 20/20 hindsight I wish I had replied ‘Maybe the door needs fixing then.’
This trip would be different. I was travelling alone and therefore would be marching entirely to the beat of my own drum. Travelling alone is not a challenge for me. About ten years ago I decided that the world was far too big to wait until others are ready to see it, and that if I have a yen to take a gander, then I should go right ahead. Happily when I make the booking I will often acquire a companion who will ask if they can come as well. Not this time however.
In March, a curveball flew in my direction. My youngest brother and his wife (whose wedding I attended in Ibidan, Nigeria last year) announced that they were expecting their first child on September 20th. My travel dates to Chicago were 18th to 24th September. They lived in Burlington, Vermont. A mere 900 miles / 1500 kilometres away. I took this as a sign that I was meant to travel to Vermont for a few days. A return flight from Chicago O’Hare to Burlington International Airport (one flight a week to Canada) was acquired.
My flight to Chicago departed on time at 3pm on Wednesday and lasted eight hours. I watched the films ‘The Bridges of Madison County’, ‘Singin’ in the rain’ and ‘Joker’ during the trip, where to my joy I had a row to myself.
I was staying at a grim little boarding house in Chinatown. This suited me fine. It had a bed, a table, chair and bathroom which is all I need. I wasn’t planning on doing anything there except sleeping. Chinatown is about four miles south of the famed Chicago Loop which would be classified as the main downtown, tourist area. I didn’t arrive till 9pm so that evening I stayed local and dined on sour fish soup in Friends BBQ in Chinatown.
I woke at 6am on Thursday (the six hour time difference meant my body thought it was lunchtime). I had an appointment at 11am for an architectural boat tour of the city. I estimated that it would take me about ninety minutes to reach the meeting point along the Chicago river. The plan was to take the Metro but the early morning sunshine was refreshing so I walked along the banks of Lake Michigan to reach the meeting point, stopping en route for a Korean breakfast of an egg tart, apple and bacon on toast, washed down with filter coffee.
I passed the famed Cloud Gate statue (more commonly known as The Bean as it resembles one) in Millennium Park. This is possibly the best known landmark of Chicago. I am not sure why. Although to see the majestic skyline reflected in the bean is impressive.
The architectural boat your was fascinating. In 1871 Chicago was a rapidly, expanding city of 300,000 residents. Mrs O’Leary’s cow knocked over a paraffin lamp (allegedly) resulting in nearly all of downtown burning to the ground, and one third of the population being displaced. Amazingly only 300 people perished in the fire which raged for days. Chicago became an architect’s dream as it was being rebuilt. A blank canvas – the skyscraper was invented in Chicago. The first skyscraper only had ten floors, but even that must have been a wonder in the 1870s. Various iconic buildings were shown to us including Willis Tower (pronounced locally as Sears Towers – at one time the world’s tallest building), Trump Tower and the St Regis tower – the 101 storey building by Jeanne Gang which is the tallest building in the world by a female architect.
I had commented to my friend how civilised Malta seemed for a holiday island. How respectable. How safe. How thoroughly elegant, despite the throngs of people everywhere you turned. On Thursday night I had a little rethink. We decided to take a promenade along the seafront as the Victorians preferred. As we are now more seasoned individuals it seemed like a classy thing to do. I was struck again by how built up it all seemed. Then again with so many people living in such a small space, what else can you expect? We dined in an Italian restaurant, run by a Croatian brother and sister, along the Maltese waterfront. Afterwards we went wandering. And ended up in the seventh circle of hell. A place called Paceville. Continue reading Gozo – and beyond!→
Now that we are plumbing the depths of winter, with daylight a distant, hazy memory, and climate conditions that would chill you to the bone, my trek to work to the industrial wastelands has become virtually intolerable. My work place itself, is in the November of locations – a singularly dank, grey, miserable, depressing, ugly part of town.
The journey has become a relentless obstacle course.
For starters, you never know when or whether the bus is going to arrive. The road which was closed while the tram track was being built, has now reopened. It’s since become a lottery whether or not you’ll end up standing by the side of the road, like a streetwalker, waiting for half an hour. In the dark, biting cold. Continue reading Love on the No. 40→
By Friday morning I was comfortably esconced in Amsterdam. My weekend of leisure in my old home town was in motion. It had been almost a year since my last visit so I was looking forward to it. Not in the desperate, craving manner of previous return visits –now that I am more settled in Ireland my longing for Amsterdam has weakened. Continue reading Amsterdam→
I was talking to someone about my recent experience hitchhiking in Leitrim. They looked horrified that I had engaged in an activity that would so obviously end with me buried alive in a shallow grave in the hills of the west. I thought about this on the bus, on the way home from work on Wednesday.
I understand people’s concern about this means of transport. A few horrible stories of murdered travellers about twenty years ago seems to have ended its popularity. It is a rare sight to see someone thumbing a lift these days.
It was not always so. Way back in the mists of time, during and immediately after college, it was my preferred method of getting from point A to point B. Firstly it was free, which was always a consideration for a poor student. Secondly it was what people did back then. There was no scandal in hitching a ride. It displayed an element of courage and practicality (even back then though people had justifiable misgivings about its safety). And you’d meet some interesting people along the way, who hopefully wouldn’t dismember you and feed you to the fishes.
midnightmurphy 