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Shqip, the language spoken in Kosovo as well as neighboring Albania, is a unique branch of the Indo-European language family, written with Roman lettering and unrelated closely to any other modern language except for more recent loan words like muze/muzeu, hotel, restorant, and universitet). And for visitors, here´s a handful of essential Albanian words and phrases:

Hello - përshëndetje (pronounced "per-shen-DET-yeh")*

Hi (informal) - tung ("toong")

Goodbye - mirupafshim ("meer-oo-PAHF-sheem

Photos: David Paul Appell unless otherwise noted


Well, well, Shqipëria is back in the news these days - and not just because it´s become somewhat fashionable as a destination in recent years. I´d been intrigued by this very singular country for many years, since a freelance editing gig for a major U.S. travel guidebook publisher, which in 1993 handed me an assignment to work on its next Eastern Europe edition – with a very small section on this quirky little land of 2.75 million in the Balkans

Fani Kurti


Interested in a highly rewarding destination in Europe that´s a little “different” and off the beaten track (and which probably no one else you know has visited)? Check out one of Iberia´s newest destinations, the intriguing capital of Albania (Shqipëri in Albanian), the small, mostly Muslim in the Balkans with an impenetrable language which spent 46 years of the postwar 20th century isolated under the secretive and Stalinist totalitarian dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. After a rough f

master2

Albania is one of the most underrated and least touristed corners of Europe, with fantastic history, cuisine, and scenery, and a prime example of that scenery is the Albanian Riviera along its 172-kilometre (107-mile) Ionian Sea coast, a place where the sun stretches across the deep sea 300 days per year; where there are splendid configurations of rocky and isolated small beaches; and the mountains and hillsides are covered in Mediterranean vegetation and dotted with charming villages

Gjirokastra (also spelled Gjirokastër) is a town in southern Albania which in 2005 was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a highly historic city and placed on slopes of the Drino River valley, with beautiful scenery and bordered by high mountains.

Known as the "City of a Thousand Stairs" Gjirokastra is characterized by cobblestone streets and Ottoman-era houses with stone roofs and wooden balconies. Gjirokastra's historic castle is located on top of a hill. The city has a troubled p