A curious fact that has to be mentioned about Tirana is the shopping. As it happens in many tourist cities shops and mall are increasing by the quantity and by quality. The Albanian capital is still quite new in the tourism sector, but it is growing fast with new luxury hotels and restaurants and also with better services for shoppers. Around Balkan’s opportunity for international buyers are a bit more limited and of course, it is more common to find local products and not so many famous brands.
Tirana is grown up in the last years, especially in the last two or three. The city changed its face and now modern shoppers can easily find what they search for. Different new shopping centers were built around the central part of Tirana in Western-style, but also the prices are grown up. Despite the well-known brands come from abroad there are also some Albanian goods, what is different is especially the cost.
In the Blloku neighborhood, the setting of the different shops are modern, elegant, and quite similar to the ones present around Western Europe, they are closed to cheerful shops trying to survive to modernity. Meanwhile, the malls are full of lights, innovative decorations, magnificent windows on clothes, jewelry, and some products that are more a dream. Those places are more of an attraction for locals because they are not used to walk inside those buildings.
Luxury started to be present in the city and this is good, but the process was too fast and somehow it looks like to lose the real Albanian soul of the small shops with some traditional objects. I love luxury and famous brands, as you know, but going around Eastern Europe I learned how to appreciate what they offer, so I am a bit surprised by how modern Tirana is trying to be. I think the shopping should be made alternating malls to shops, especially for the experience that clients can live keeping in touch with the local sellers with their interesting and creative products.