Known magnaline: Tirana is very cool

The darker years of Enver Hoxha's brutal socialism are increasingly distant, as is the August 8, 1991, when Vlora landed at the port of Bar, with 20,000 Albanians fleeing the regime and poverty.

Today, the great eagles, the country's symbol, fly ever higher, between an ever - increasing GDP and the desire to change new generations.

This is how journalist Martha Fores, published in the Italian magazine “Face Magazine”, begins reporting.

The economy rises by 4%, exceeding the World Bank's International Monetary Fund projections. Rating agency Moody's deems positively the government's functioning reforms of EU membership talks.

charismatic Prime Minister Edi Rama is the man of the moment. The architect, artist, mayor of Tirana and later Minister of Culture he was the inventor of the urban re-developing project, which painted gray buildings built in socialist style. There are three main areas where they can admire painted houses: over the long <x0) boulevard “Bajram Curri”, behind the Tabacles Bridge, in Wilson Square at the end of the Block and the Black Bird neighbourhood, where they stop buses leading to Durres and Kruja.

The past is a distant memory. The only reminisscence is the Muradie Mosque, a former Byzantine church transformed by the Ottomans in 1537. The bloc is a symbol of new Tirana. The Communist regime officials lived here today, with bars and cafes, restaurants and fashion stores.

Low taxes and poor bureaucratic regulations have brought many Italian and Europeans to the country, who have decided to invest in Albania. The University of Tirana has linked co-operation with Italian ones and the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery at Catholic University “The Doing of the Good Council” is among the first universities in the country and co-operates with professors of Rome's Tor Vergata University of Medicine Studies.

In new Albania, tourism flies, thanks to low prices, beautiful beaches and curiosity to discover a new holiday destination -- 1,919,504 foreigners entered the country in the first half of 2018, 9% more than the same period in 2017. From 2012 to 2017, admissions almost doubled from 3.2 million to 5.1 million. In just two months -- from June to July this year -- the number of companies operating in tourist areas has increased by 58% and 1,531 new companies have been registered in coastal areas of Durres, Lezha, Shkodra and Vlora.

Bumi brings opportunities, but so does growth. With the economy, cement on rocks grows, without any construction plans at risk to many archaeological sites. The most authentic Albania thus remains the one of connection with the historic centres of Gjirokastra and Berat, declared property of Isco, with the Maturation and Termial Waters and the Valley of Valbonne, “the miracle of the Albanian Alps”, as they call it here.