International Byron Conference, Tirana, AlbaniaTwo hundred years ago Lord George Byron visited Greece and Albania, one of the first Englishmen to do so. He travelled on horseback from Jannina in Greece, then known as Epiros, to Tepelene in Albania, at the invitation of Ali Pasha, then ruler of Epiros and most of Albania. Byron made this journey, along with his friend Hobhouse, and local guides, through mountainous and highly dangerous terrain – Ali was fighting a war against the Pasha of Berat, a more northern Albanian city.
The impact on Byron of this very different culture and its ruler, Ali Pasha, was immense. Out of this journey and this meeting came Childe Harold, the long lyric poem that was to make Byron famous. Out of it too came Byron's lifelong love of Albania and its people.
There are Byron societies all over the world yet this was the first time, the 200th anniversary of his visit, that an International Byron Conference has been held in Albania. And this was thanks to the tireless efforts of Dr. Afrim Karagjozi and his colleagues and students at the University of Tirana.
All the speakers were picked up at Rinas airport. The last time I'd flown in to Tirana was nine years ago (since then I'd taken the ferry from Bari to Durres) and I could hardly believe this sumptuous place I found myself in. Spacious, airy and spotless, no long queues, and you didn't even have to pay to enter the country! (Formerly there was a charge of ten euros). We were then taken to the Hotel Mondial near the busy intersection where Rruga Kavaja meets the Unaza or ring road that encircles the city. After leaving my suitcase at the hotel I could not resist walking up Rruga Kavaja to Skanderbeg Square, drinking in the evening warmth and all the sights and sounds that were immediately so familiar and at the same time so evocative of the past, when I used to live here. The blaring of car horns, the ubiquitous dust, the scents of roasting corn, hot oil and byrek, scorched meat, pungent cheese, herbs and spices, interspersed with various perfumes. Something that is dormant in me when I am not here comes alive in me when I am. Every step along the dusty road was a greeting, an inner incredulity, every step a delight to be back here. Like the birds that cluster in the chestnut trees on Rruga Sami Frasheri in early evening, a cloud of chattering sound, I was singing, though not out loud. Only after I had made my own personal greeting to this city, by walking along its streets, could I go back to join the others, where we had a meal of so many courses I lost count, and our glasses were constantly filled by attentive waiters.
The next day Dr Karagjozi opened the conference, and we read our papers. Byron the traveller, the ghost in Byron's bedroom, his influence on so many writers, the national costumes worn by the Albanians he met, 200 years ago, a modern day journey in Byron's footsteps, the effect of Ali Pasha and Albania on Byron the writer and the man, were just some of the topics covered.
The next two days were spent travelling. We took the
coast road to Saranda, the city of forty saints, stopping
at the Llogora Pass where the mountains slope
downwards to the sea. From Saranda we went on to
Butrint, a World Heritage Site, full of classical ruins, 
including the remains of an Asklepian temple, a
Greek amphitheatre, a Christian baptistry and the
mysterious Lion Gate.
The following day we visited Gjirokaster, with several 
surviving old Ottoman houses built into the mountainside,
and a museum refurbished with traditional carpets and
wooden carved walls and ceilings.
We stopped at Tepelene, Ali Pasha's birthplace, to admire his statue and the few remains of the vast palace where Byron met Ali Pasha. In a letter Byron described the inner courtyard of the palace as being made of marble with a fountain playing in the centre. This can only be imagined now, beyond the remains of the wall of the entrance archway, where blue flowers sprout between the cracks in the stonework.
But the mountains are still there, quite unchanged.
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