In Tirana, the capital of Albania, we visited the Resurrection of Christ Orthodox Cathedral, which is considered among the largest Albanian orthodox churches in the Balkan Peninsula.

Interestingly, at the Cathedral of St. Demetrius (aka Church of Albania) in Berat, the Catholic priests (upper right) were among the rare people that did not want to be photographed. This one image was taken before they surprisingly waved me off.

In Berat, we also photographed the Bayezid Mosque and the dervish temple next door to our hotel. The mosque was undistinguished from the outside, yet the insides (middle plus middle-right plus lower-left) were as elegant as any mosque we have entered.

We visited an open air market one late afternoon near closing hours, that was selling mostly food, plus all sorts of knick-knacks (such as the flags upper-right) in Tirana. The colorful old painted building that we had come to photograph had been replaced with a newer, modern building in the past 2 years.

The roof of the market was interesting, in that it was made of mirror-like glass that reflected the buildings across the street. We actually spent more time photographing the building reflections (above) than we did the interior of the market.

Tirana is known for their colorful painted building facades, which is best seen from the rooftops of high-rise buildings. Tirana is a city that is growing rapidly, and construction cranes can be seen across the city (left column). One imposing building in the middle of the city (middle) houses the regional headquarters for both NATO and the American DEA. Older buildings also abound (middle-right and lower-right), often intermixed with newer construction.

One small part of the downtown area has uniquely equipped traffic lights that I found fascinating, and a huge improvement over the stoplights we have seen for decades. They have the normal 3-light indicators on the pole and on the end of a pole. However, the entire pole is also composed of LEDs that show the current signal color, making them much easier to see and hard to miss (upper right).

As always, catching interesting characters on the streets is a favorite pastime and target for our cameras.