{"id":2352,"date":"2012-07-17T21:26:20","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T04:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=2352"},"modified":"2012-07-17T21:33:13","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T04:33:13","slug":"unesco-city-gjirokaster-and-the-old-village-of-qeparo-albania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=2352","title":{"rendered":"Unesco City, Gjirokaster And The Old Village Of Qeparo, Albania"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 12, 2012*<\/strong><\/p>\n

With our refill situation resolved thanks to the Saranda fisherman with his compressor, we had a day to view some more sites.<\/p>\n

We toured Gjirokaster Castle, a large fortification on top of the mountain.<\/p>\n

Inside the castle<\/p>\n

There are no artificial lights inside the castle, you can only see by the sun light that seeps in – Albania maintains a very “Green Friendly” tourist environment; the smell inside was quite unique, too.<\/p>\n

The view from the castle.<\/p>\n

The view from the castle.<\/p>\n

Me with a US Spy Plane<\/p>\n

This is me with an “American Spy Plane.”<\/p>\n

The plane, sometime during the 1960’s, had mechanical problems and had to make an emergency landing at Tirana airport.<\/p>\n

Albania sent the pilot home, but kept the airplane and used it as propaganda as a “captured American spy plane.”<\/p>\n

Communist rallies were held here.<\/p>\n

The field used for large communist rallies; since then, events like concerts, apparently are held here.<\/p>\n

Walking around the castle:<\/p>\n

Walking around the castle<\/p>\n

The view from the castle<\/p>\n

We left the castle and went in to the village:<\/p>\n

Qeparo Village<\/p>\n

Qeparo Village is a characteristic example of “Vernacular Architecture,” which is a category of buildings based on local needs and available materials.<\/p>\n

The Old Village Of Qeparo<\/p>\n

A Grocery Store
\nA Grocery Store.<\/p>\n

Enver Hoxhas childhood home.
\nEnver Hoxha’s childhood home.<\/p>\n

As the story goes, it was destroyed in World War II, and later rebuild by Hoxha even bigger and grander.<\/p>\n

Gjirokaster Castle from a distance.
\nGjirokaster Castle from a distance.<\/p>\n

Me in Albania<\/p>\n

We walked all over the place – up hill in 100 degree heat. <\/p>\n

We left after a few hours and headed to our next destination.<\/p>\n

Heading to Blue Eye, we got stopped at a Police check point.<\/p>\n

The Police Officer asked Idit where we were from.<\/p>\n

Idit told him he is from Tirana, and that I am an American tourist, visiting the castle.<\/p>\n

They exchanged a few words in Albanian.<\/p>\n

“He wants to know how you liked the castle,” Idit said.<\/p>\n

All the Albanian I had learned, I had forgotten.<\/p>\n

I leaned over, smiled and gave a thumbs up.<\/p>\n

The Officer smiled and we were let go without showing any paperwork.<\/p>\n

*Due to time constraints, lack of reliable internet access outside of Tirana, power outages in Tirana and the strength of Albanian beer, posting of this article has been delayed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 12, 2012* With our refill situation resolved thanks to the Saranda fisherman with his compressor, we had a day to view some more sites. We toured Gjirokaster Castle, a large fortification on top of the mountain. There are no artificial lights inside the castle, you can only see by the sun light that seeps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}