Beer and mountain huts

I like Zagreb in summer. Half empty, as its inhabitants head off for the coast, it is quiet and peaceful. No problem finding a place to sit outside my favourite cafes. Ice cream at Millenium, and coffee at Pif. Steamily hot, of necessity everything moves at a slower pace.

And there is nice beer to be found in Zagreb. As ever, the micro-brewery whose beers can be found at Mali Medo (Little Bear) on Tkalčićeva street are superb. The find of this stay was Kasačko, a bottled beer from Gospić. In style, it is very similar to many English beers, which must be a good thing, a darkish brown colour, bitter to the taste, very nice. Interestingly, it comes from the same region as the once marvelous Velebitsko, which is sadly not what it was since production was increased. I first tried Velebitsko about ten years ago, when visiting the Plitvica national park, in Lika, a region part-way from Zagreb to the Dalmatian coast. Both its dark and light versions were superb, without exaggerations among the finest beers I have tasted anywhere. It couldn't be found in Zagreb then, but each time I passed by Plitvica I picked up several bottles. Then it changed. Suddenly Velebitsko could be found in many places in Zagreb. It wasn't bad, still among the better beers in Croatia, but nothing like what it had been. What a shame. And now there is Kasačko, also from Gospić, different from and still not quite as good as the old Velibitsko. But it's good to have it.

I have drunk Kasačko twice this trip. Once at Kaptolski Klet, an old-style Zagreb restaurant opposite the cathedral, where pleasant cool breezes waft down from Sljeme on a hot evening. The second time was on Sljeme itself, at the Runolist "Planinarski Dom" (mountain hut, although rather more than a hut). It was a superb lunch at Runolist, confirmed as my favourite "dom" on Sljeme. It had rained heavily one day a week earlier, and was therefore an excellent time for mushrooms. I ate "vrganji" (ceps) in a sauce, with pasta. It was delicious, and a heaped plate for less than five Euros has to be good. There was also their excellent home-made bread, and a sour cherry and apple strudel. All washed down with Kasačko, and in excellent company.

Climbing Sljeme on a Sunday and eating well at the top is such a joy. Somehow everyone seems to leave their troubles behind at the bottom of the mountain, and all are happy, in good spirits. I climbed Sljeme four times in just over a week. It's not the same on weekdays. Fewer people, and not the same as the Sunday regulars. Not everyone observes the custom of greeting people they pass with a friendly "Dobar dan" ("Good day") on weekdays. And the doms don't make such an effort with the food. There was little on offer at Puntijarka on Friday, and the turkey with "mlinci" (a kind of Croatian noodles) I opted for were disgusting - virtually inedible, dried out, probably several days old. I used to like Puntijarka very much, but this was a disgrace. That said, their (freshly made) apple strudel was very good.

Ghosts in Tirana

One of the first observations almost all foreigners seem to make on visiting Tirana is that it's a lot nicer than they expected. And it's true. Tirana is really a rather pleasant town, with nice green spaces, gardens and birdsong, and lots of lively cafes and clubs. It feels odd sitting at my favourite cafe in the Block (the area of central Tirana that used to be closed off by police, reserved for the communist elite), and looking at Enver Hoxha's former villa across the way (his garden is a bit unkempt these days). In this modern, bustling city it is hard to imagine what it can have been like less than two decades ago when the most oppressive communist regime in Europe was still in power. In this very informal country, in which laws are cheerfully disregarded, I often find myself wondering how the communists ever manage to exercise the control they did? It's like the saying about not being able to herd cats. Who could ever have managed to herd Albanians? Well, of course it was fear that did it. Although I suspect that officials, police and people all found little ways of compromising, turning a blind eye and getting around many of the more petty restrictions on their lives.

The pyramid, Tirana

But in the midst of this modern Mediterranean city there are reminders, ghosts of times past. Not just Hoxha's house. There is also the pyramid, a dilapidated, decaying building on the main boulevard in the city centre, designed by Hoxha's daughter as a museum to her vile father. Now it is crumbling, no longer a museum, although still in use. It's an ugly building. No doubt it will be torn down one day, like the statue of the dictator that used to stand on Skenderbeg Square. I was amused one evening to notice some young boys on the top of it, breaking bits off and throwing them to the ground. Vandals with taste.

For me, perhaps the most ghostly building is the Hotel Dajti, just along the boulevard from the pyramid. Once the one hotel in town where foreign visitors stayed, now an eerie, empty building, still standing while the ownership of the land it stands on is disputed. Some of the windows are shuttered, others are broken, and still others are wide open, as if the rooms are being aired for new guests. I was told that some foreign visitors to Tirana in the 1990s stayed in Hoxha's house, then a hotel, and found that they could not sleep. Was there a presence in the house still? I think the Hotel Dajti may be haunted as well.

Another ghostly reminder is at the factory at Kombinat, a suburb of Tirana built around a big factory. The factory itself is rather extraordinary. In rigidly atheist, communist Albania, the entrance looks very much like a religious building, perhaps a monastery. I think it must have been conscious, a factory as the new place of worship in the new, secular world of the proletariat. In the square outside the gate is a plinth on which once stood a statue of Stalin, plastered in campaign posters for the forthcoming parliamentary election when I visited - a much more fitting purpose.

I like Albania. Seeing a place where so much progress has been made from such an unpromising starting-point gives me hope. The ghosts are still there, but they're faded, lost, out of place in the much brighter new Albania. They shouldn't be forgotten, but they're no longer scary.