Also known as my hometown _
No one knows the real story why Korca is named as "Little Paris". Some say because the first French Lyceum is opened there. Another story is when French troops arrived in this small city in 1917, they saw a resemblance to their own capital city. Personally, I have no idea how Paris (I have never been there, though it's on my bucket list) looks to make a comparison with my hometown, but let's say I am quite proud of it.
I prefer to call it the "city with a lot-metal-banisters". As you see in the pictures, the houses are surrounded with metal banisters and it's a rule from the municipality to maintain this old tradition. The private houses that are in the two main boulevards should keep their metal banisters, too.
This city has a very interesting architecture. It mostly consists of private houses, 2-3 floors and they use wood stoves. I love wooden stove, the smell of wood burning is amazing.
It's not fog. It's the smoke coming out of chimneys lol.
This small city, with a population of almost 75 000 people, is one of the most beautiful Albanian cities. It is clean and green and it has long time maintained traditional architecture.
Every year, there is an international competition about stone sculptures. Artists from all the over the world bring their best work in Korca and the winner's masterpiece becomes part of this open-air gallery.
This particular place is called "The Grassland of Tears". Around 19th Century, women of the city would greet the immigrants in this place. Greeting was mostly crying lol. Thus, the name "The Grassland of Tears"
When I was a kid, I was always amazed of the design of this building. It's old of course.
Korca is the city of art and culture. The 1st Albanian school, ever, was open in this city in 1887 and it was only for girls. The 1st French Lyceum was open in this city again, in 1917. The fact that current Vice Prime Minister of Albania is from Korca says a lot.
During my last visit, (currently, I live in Tirana) I had the chance to go to see "Pazarin e Korce" or "The Market of Korca". We usually call it Pazari I Vjeter or The Old Market. There have been a lot of reconstruction and renovation and they brought back the old style of the market. It has a lot of historical, cultural and artistic value. The architecture of this market is unique on its own. This is the same place where traders from Turkey, Venice (yes, Venice, you read it correctly), Triest and Greece would come for their business. The 2nd floors of the buildings in this market were used as hotels for the traders.
This is the first post about this city. Unfortunately, the battery of the camera went down so I will take other photos next trip. I hope it will be snowing when I go there because it gets even more beautiful :)
Photos taken NIkon D3000 (whose battery went down super fast) and Samsung Galaxy S5.