Greg and I found a Crêperie today while we were wandering around the new town looking for a place to buy cardstock for our amateur photo-restoration project (I'll talk more about that in a minute). So this place has been open for two months, and I only wish I'd known about it sooner! It's delicious!! The owner, named Mr. Santell, is a solid looking guy with a thin beard somewhere in his late 20's. We ordered two dessert Crêpes (chocolate, cumbled cookies, and creme). The owner speaks a little english, and when he found out we were Americans living in Gjirokaster he offered us both a drink of our choice from his fridge and insisted that we not pay for the meal. His Crêpes ranged in price from 80 to 250 Leke and offered a variety of ingredients and toppings, some savory, some sweet. We gave him many thanks and continued on our way.
The Photo Restoration Project is something that sort of fell into our laps as we began visiting the different historic houses in the old town to gather info for our new line of tourism brochures. We were visiting the house (whose name escapes me) near the Babaramo House. The owners weren't home, so Greg went back later in the week and was invited in for coffee. While he was there, the owners showed him a number of old photographs, some badly ripped and damaged, and he offered to scan and restore them (in a rudimentary way) using photoshop. They agreed, and the photo restoration project was born. It has since grown (in my mind) into a larger project. If we can make an effort to approach - or excite others about the idea to approach - one house per week over the next two years, we'll compile and restore a large database of images for the collective memory of the city. The finished product could be used to create a series of miniture museums with photographs and family histories in the different historic homes, thus drawing in tourists and spreading the wealth directly to homeowners... Or they could be compiled into a single museum space housed up in the castle... Or they could be used as images for postcards, callendars, etc. to be sold commercially... whatever happens, atleast a copy will be preserved in the electronic archive of our office here in Gjirokastër, a partner of the Regional Institute of Monuments and the National Ministry of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports.
There is one more piece to the Photo Restoration Project - I am in the process of contacting the National Archives in the following countries: Albania, America, Austria, England, France, Germany, Greece, and Italy; to see if they have any historic photographs or documents from any period of Gjriokastër's long history. We want to do everything we can to add detail to the canvas here. We were inspired to start reaching out to the archives of foreign countries when we found this photograph of (what we think are) Austrian troops occupying the castle sometime in the First World War...
Now it's raining again and I'm heading home (while we have power) to make some pasta...
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