Bunk'Art 1

A 106-room nuclear bunker dug into the hillside on the eastern edge of the city, originally built to shelter the communist leadership in the event of nuclear war. Since 2014 it has been a museum of communist Albania — half historical exhibition, half site-specific contemporary art installation — and it is one of the most striking experiences in Tirana.

Allow at least two hours. The exhibitions cover the Italian invasion of 1939, the partisan war, the Hoxha years, and the long isolation that followed. Some rooms are preserved exactly as the regime left them, including Hoxha's own apartment within the bunker. Reach it by bus from Skanderbeg Square or by the Dajti gondola — Bunk'Art is at the lower cable-car station.

things to do museum
A story
The bunker was built to shelter Enver Hoxha and his inner circle in the event of a nuclear strike — 106 rooms, five storeys deep, sealed by blast doors that still work. It was a state secret until the 1990s; most Albanians did not know it existed until the museum opened in 2014.