Through our Crossroads of Cultures program, travelers learn from expert lecturers while journeying through Albania’s most notable sites and towns along with Epirus, Greece’s northwest region. Even though Albania, which borders northwest Greece, has been inhabited for at least ten millennia, today it’s one of Europe’s last “undiscovered’ countries but Albania’s strategic position, only a short distance from Italy across the Adriatic Sea, and commanding the route from west to east, made it an important and flourishing possession of empires and other powers since antiquity. Greeks founded cities on its shore, beginning in the 7th century BC; the Romans made it a province, later becoming a Byzantine and Ottoman territory; and in the early 20th century, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and under the domination of Italy and Germany.
Meet at airport and transfer to Tirana. Afterwards take a tour of the major sites of Tirana, including the colorful buildings the Albanian capital is now recognized for. The dull grey communist architecture buildings have been transformed into modern art canvases through splashes of bright colors and abstract shapes. An ingenious way of uplifting the facades and the moods of the inhabitants. Overnight in Tirana.