Photos and Videos

While no one was looking, Albania transformed itself into a destination with considerable appeal for American tourists. Reporter Nadine Godwin traveled to the country recently for a first-hand look at its appeal. Shown here, colorful buildings in Albania's capital city, Tirana.

Photos & Videos

Albania: Europe's last secret

While no one was looking, Albania transformed itself into a destination with considerable appeal for American tourists. Reporter Nadine Godwin traveled to the country recently for a first-hand look at its appeal. Shown here, colorful buildings in Albania's capital city, Tirana.

While no one was looking, Albania transformed itself into a destination with considerable appeal for American tourists. Reporter Nadine Godwin traveled to the country recently for a first-hand look at its appeal. Shown here, colorful buildings in Albania's capital city, Tirana.

The Albanian Alps as seen from the four-lane highway from Kosovo to Tirana.

Many buildings on Tirana's outskirts are brightly colored, a direct reflection of a campaign to brighten the city center with paint.

The Albania National Museum, on Skanderbeg Square in Tirana.

The Enver Hoxha Museum is eyed for dismantling in 2011, 20 years after the downfall of communism.

Tirana government buildings constructed between 1929 and 1931 by Italian architects.

The Palace of Culture on Skanderbeg Square in Tirana.

Statue of Albanian hero Skanderbeg in the capital of Tirana.

Aggressive building has brought glistening modern construction to the once-drab capital of Europe's most rigidly communist country.

A high-rise building sits well back from a central city boulevard, with a tranquil park in the foreground.

Many of Tirana's socialist-era buildings have been brightly painted, an initiative of Mayor Edi Rama.

View of Tirana's cityscape, with the mountains that form a backdrop for the city.

Signage for a Tirana university (UFO stands for Universitas Fabrefacta Optime), with apartment buildings in the background.

Souvenir sellers set up on the roadside in Kruja, Albania.

Kruja's Ottoman bazaar caters nowadays to tourists.

In Kruja, tile-roofed, white plaster houses with their signs of life: laundry on the line and a chaos of electrical wires.

Ethnographic museum in Kruja, Albania.

The medieval-style Skanderbeg Museum in Kruja.