Tirana in 3 days

Skanderbeg Square covers about 40,000 m² and opened to the public in June 2017, after a redesign by the studio 51N4E and the artist Anri Sala, which makes it younger than it looks. The Clock Tower and the Et'hem Bey Mosque stand on its edge, and the mosque is free to enter, with donations welcome. Cover your knees and shoulders, take off your shoes at the door and keep the camera down during prayer.

Bunk'Art 2 is in the centre on Rruga Abdi Toptani and opens every day. It was an anti-atomic bunker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with 24 rooms on about 1,000 m², and the exhibitions follow the gendarmerie, the police and the Sigurimi security service from 1912 to 1991. Allow about an hour. A combined ticket for Bunk'Art 1 and 2 stays valid for three days, which matters on day two.

Walk on to Pazari i Ri, the rebuilt market, where a bakery byrek costs €0.90–1.65. Lakror'Ane serves lakror with spinach and gjizë, a flatter pie than byrek that is baked under a metal lid on embers.

Blloku is 10 to 15 minutes on foot from the centre. Until communism fell it was a fenced quarter for members of the politburo, and ordinary Albanians were not let in. Enver Hoxha's house still stands there.

The same streets now hold boutiques, restaurants, bars and cafés, so the evening needs no plan beyond a free terrace.

Take the blue Porcelan line from the Clock Tower by Skanderbeg Square, for €0.44 (40 lek). The ride lasts 20 to 30 minutes, and a short walk uphill leads from the bus stop to the lower station, where the cable car climbs for about 15 minutes. The operator advises arriving between 9 and 11 to beat the queues, and a ticket is valid only on the day it is bought.

The top of Dajti stands at 1,613 m. Near the upper station are the restaurant Ballkoni i Dajtit, an Adventure Park and a mini golf, so there is enough up there to fill a long coffee and a short walk.

Ride back down and find Bunk'Art 1 on Rruga Fadil Deliu, just behind the cable car. It was built as a shelter for Hoxha and his inner circle, on five levels with 106 rooms, and it opened to visitors in November 2014. The dark corridors are a cool change after the mountain sun.

The bus runs back to the centre, and dinner in Blloku or around Pazari i Ri needs no booking plan.

The House of Leaves on Rruga Dëshmorët e 4 Shkurtit began as a maternity clinic in 1931, served the Gestapo in the war and then housed the Sigurimi, which watched, intercepted mail and followed foreigners until 1991. It has been a museum since May 2017, and the name comes from the ivy on its façade. Entry: €7.70. Hours: daily 9–19.

Postbllok on Dëshmorët e Kombit boulevard opened in 2013 in the former garden of a villa, and it keeps three pieces of the dictatorship: beams from Spaç prison, part of a concrete bunker and a section of the Berlin Wall. Then look at the Pyramid from the outside, a museum to Enver Hoxha at first, now a youth centre.

The Grand Park was laid out in 1955–1956 on a Bulgarian plan, and volunteers dug its lake, which is too polluted today for any water activity. The botanical garden, the zoo and the church of St Procopius are all inside.

Krujë or Durrës can replace the park, since both take the afternoon rather than the day.