Skanderbeg Square
Cars, cars and more cars. There are a lot of cars in Tirana, the capital of Albania. The cars at Boulevard Zogu I are stuck in a long line, which leads them to the main square, Sheshi Skënderbej.
The square is huge. At the right side (with your back towards the statue) you find a nice gift from the Sovjet Union. The Palace of Culture. It has a façade with big, square, pillars every ten meters. But there are no decorations; the building is just a big, white, box.
Turning ninety degrees further, the National Museum of History appears. Again not really an architectural master piece. It is built in same communistic style, with no decoration. Except one piece. Resting on six pillars, above the entrance, a huge mosaic dominates the façade.
Men with shields, arrows and swords at the left. On the right four people are holding rifles. In the middle a proud woman is holding a gun above her head. She’s accompanied by two men: a worker and a soldier holding a big Albanian flag. The mosaic, named Albania, shows all the fights Albanians had from the Illyrian time till the Second World War.
The square in front of the national museum is filled with young kids, driving around in electronic toy cars. Parents watching their young, making pictures and enjoying the evening sun.
Turning around, and the huge statue of Skanderbeg shows up again. But what is that, it the corner just behind two big buildings?
Just squeezed between the Place of Culture and a government building, there is a beautiful small mosque. Et’hem Bey Mosque is the one of the oldest building in Tirana. The mosque was build in the end of the eighteenth century, and survived the destruction of religious buildings during communism.
