Some months before, an advertisement for a travel agency in Cologne appeared in a West German paper announcing an eighteen-day tour group through Albania. There was nothing in it to suggest that it was addressed only to Communists. Consequently, on the principle of trying anything once, I sent in an application to join this tour group, in the virtual certainty that it would be rejected or, more probably, ignored. To my surprise it was promptly acknowledged, with a batch of forms to be filled in, a demand for a deposit of one hundred pounds, and the request that my passport be sent to Germany to be fitted out with an Albanian visa. This would presumably take place in East Berlin.

Return to Albania: Enigma of the Balkans

