Artists, Artists, Artists

Known as the Cradle of the Arts

This city has a rich artistic life and has had an enormous contribution to Albanian culture. Poets, painters, musicians, writers and photographers, if they are famous they are probably from Shkodra.  Shkodra has a museum that displays the first photo taken in Albania.  Local produces of the masks used in Venice carnivals and Vegas shows are in Shkodra.

Shkodra, also called the “capital of north Albania” it is one of the oldest cities in the country, founded in the 4th century B.C. as the center of the Labeat tribe of Illyrians. It is surrounded by three rivers; Drini, Buna, and Kiri.

Shkodra Lake is the largest lake in the entire Balkan Peninsula, with an area of 368 hectares. The lake is shared between Albania and Montenegro, of which 149 hectares and 57 km of shoreline fall within the Albanian territory. According to local legend, there was only a small brook fed by a water spring where the lake is today. One evening a young woman who was collecting water at the spring received the news that her husband had just returned home after years of traveling abroad. She jumped up for joy and ran home, forgetting to put back the rocks that blocked the water from running. The water flowed the whole night and the next day the Shkodra Lake was created. In reality, the lake is sourced by the Morača River, and drains into the Adriatic via the Bojana River.