To utter is to criticize. The town of Shkoder is a collection of pale, low, dilapidated houses flanking a few powdery asphalt roads. Everywhere the dust has forced its way through, and little stones lie all over the place, like confetti after a wedding. In the center, there is a relatively imposing theater, which was, of course, closed for the summer but did not look as though it did much work during the winter. A pleasant park surrounds it, spattered with wooden benches and trusts of heroes.
Lunch is taken in the tourist hotel, and here once again the garden is the most pleasant feature.
Four cars pulled up during our stay, the only four cars we saw. Two of them were old Russian Pobiedas, painted a venomous khaki, out of which a great many Albanian officers streamed, while the other two were brand-new Fiat 1800's in shining midnight blue with brilliant chrome, from which six Chinese officers emerged. There was a banquet indoors, with toasts and speeches, and a line of Chinese military headgear on the rack in the hallway. The lunch was simple but excellent. The local wine is very good, the brandy ferocious but potable, and the cigarettes quite up to any made anywhere.