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22:51 TODAY

Businessman Artur Shehu breaks his silence: I am a long-time land owner in Zvërnec, I don't know the investors at all

Albanian businessman Artur Shehu spoke on the Opinion show...

By Edison Ypi/ Korça

2025-01-30 14:54:00, Qyteti im CNA

Korça is a big lady with many sisters and brothers. Korça's sisters are Vienna, Rome, London. Korça's brothers are Paris, Berlin, Milan, Budapest.

Korça also has many cousins, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces; Tirana, Erseka, Thessaloniki, Bucharest, Athens, Istanbul, Zagreb, Pristina, Skopje.

The combination of the Mediterranean and the continent makes Korça an absolutely magical city, and the journey to it definitely fascinating, such that you never get bored no matter how often you go and come.

Just as jewels are different in beauty wherever you look, the charm of Korça depends on which direction you approach it from.

To fully enjoy the journey to Korça, one must go to Korça unencumbered by the curves of any road, the narrowness of any path, the difficulties of any obstacle. So, the best thing to do in Korça is to go like a bird.

If you are unable to travel to Korça by plane, other options are:

Approaching it from the west. When you are on top of Qafë e Thanë, while you feel that behind you the warm Mediterraneanism is giving way, ahead a new breeze is rising, a new magic, the continent.

If you approach Korça from the east, that is, from Devolli, you experience the opposite sensation. You leave behind the continental coolness, while ahead awaits the Mediterranean warmth, the soft and warm Korça.

Coming to Korça from the south is risky.

From the Këlcyra Gorge, the Vjosa Valley, Laskovik, Kolonja, you have traveled over 200 kilometers among the most shocking beauties of the planet during which you have been affected by the "Stendhal Syndrome", by the beauty that tires and makes you sick. So if you are coming to Korça from the south, you can go crazy or die.

Travelers with higher aesthetic demands can also approach Korça from other directions.

From Gramsh along the Devoll River to Maliq, then to Korça. Passing through this canyon with breathtaking abysses and waterfalls along this road that few know exists, is a journey that will remain forever in the memory.

From Skrapar, through the mountains. This variant, in addition to the sophistication of the flavors, also requires courage, muscles, and experience, conditions that only a few lucky ones meet to be envied.

From the foot of the Dry Mountain, Podgorie, Zvezda, Plasë, Korçë, it is an option for those who are looking for the most shocking aesthetic thrills. This itinerary is especially preferred by crazy Lasgushians who go there in the hope that traveling there will make them a grain of meat; "an escaped eagle (that) flies over Dry Mountain".

Kolonja, Poradeci, Devolli, Prespa, Voskopoja, are the 5 jewels of the golden necklace that adorns the royal gills of the Lady of Korça.

The places where the Korça fascination becomes so unbearable that you can go crazy are two: Prespa and Voskopoja. One more magical than the other, both are "Good Places" like Jerusalem and Mecca, where if you are sick, you get cured, if you are healthy, you don't get sick. Voskopoja and Prespa are both holy places unpolluted by the crowd. When you are in these two places, when you shout and hear the echoes, you have the feeling that you are talking to God.

There is also Dardha. But there is a problem. It is not known whether "Korça has Dardha behind" or "Dardha has Korça behind".

If you sleep one night in Prespa or Voskopoja and don't dream, your idiot test has come back positive. You are surely suffering from spiritual and cerebral insufficiency. You are an inferior being. Give up traveling and reading. Go sell your wares on some stall.

If you are not an idiot, and you lie down to sleep one night in Voskopoja or Prespa, take care that you do not fall asleep during that night. Leave that night white. If you sleep, you will see a dream, in your dream you will see Saints, Churches, frescoes, old tombs, a monastery with moss, that will be fanned night after night for 20 years in a row.

The only city in Albania where the citizen, the peasant, the poor, the rich, everyone feels proud of their dignity, is Korça.

But human Korça, gentle Korça, deep Korça, what is Korça like from the inside?

A European city with churches and bell towers, with ladies and gentlemen like all of Europe, Korça has an inner wisdom and gentleness preserved with an unparalleled determination that neither wars nor anything else have been able to touch. Touching the human gentleness of Korça is harder than scratching a diamond. I dare not get any closer to Korça. If I were to hesitate, I would look like an elephant inside a glass shop. I am dizzy with its sophistication. It would be better to give me a brush and paint to make a Mona Lisa more amazing than Leonardo's, than to make me sin by "drawing" Korça. It would be the same as saying to the blacksmith of Sovjani; You have the chisels and hammers, take the marble from Streltsa, carve me a David.

The outskirts of Korça in the evening;

The shining Voskopoja. The shining Saint Prodhomi. The sparkling Liqeri. The gloomy Mal' i Thate. The frowning Ivan. The awake Gora. The sleep of Opari. The Mokra's rinds flow. The peace of Prespa. The flowing Devolli. The raki' takes Sovjani. The Plasa gets drunk. The Zvirina party. The fresh pears. The Pirgu celebration. The wedding Lubonja, the Krisëm Korita. The Dvorani pipe does not whistle. The Ormani howls. The Qarri cries. The fire and flames of Starja. The Valamara faints. The Helmësi frowns. The wise Nizhaveci. The gjuruldi Kapështica. The embers under the Boboshtica cauldrons. The mortar and bricks of Pojani. The Bulgarec dances. Near, the fields. Far, the villages. Further, the fires of the Çobenjs. Even further, the horizon, the sky.

They say that, like everything, Korça will come to an end someday. This will happen when Lake Prespa becomes the size of a coffee cup and Mali i Thatë the size of a walnut./ CNA