"I JUST wish you could have been here four years ago so you could see how things have changed," my guide Altin remarked as we motored gently through Tirana, one of the least known capitals of Europe.

It was the last day of my lightning four-day visit to Albania to see the work of International Community Assist, the charity based in Patney, near Devizes, which has been helping the people of this former communist country rebuild their lives.

Altin, a medical student, is the son of Bashkim Bashllari, ICA's executive director, who had agreed to show me the city.

The central Skanderbeg Square, named after the country's great 15th century hero who held back the Ottoman Turks, but only for a short while, is a microcosm of the country as a whole. Here are gracious Ottoman administrative buildings, housing the country's ministries, side by side with more brutally 20th century additions thrown up during the reign of socialist dictator Enver Hoxha.

Just down the road are Italian designs put up during the occupation of Mussolini's fascist forces in the 1930s.

Despite brief periods of violence, Albania's revolution was a velvet one. The extraordinary metal tepee built to house the Enver Hoxha museum, now acts as a venue for children's events. Nearby the Peace Bell is reputed to have been made by the children of Shkodra out of lead bullets.

The Albanians have wrought great improvements in their capital with a minimum of expenditure. The workers' flats, built during the Hoxha era, have been repaired and painted in bright colours and avant garde designs that have caused great controversy among Tiranians. It was the brainchild of the present mayor of the city, a trained artist, who must have made a good impression as he has recently been re-elected.

The statue of Enver Hoxha, covered in gold leaf, was torn down in the early 1990s but the plinth where it stood is still vacant. A plan to rebuild the city centre, drawn up by a team of French architects, is on display in the city art gallery.

It will cost billions and will transform Tirana into a clone of any other European city. I hope it falls at the first hurdle.

My first impressions of Albania had been considerably different when David James, the founder of ICA, and I landed at Rinas airport, now named in honour of the country's most famous daughter, Mother Theresa, or Nene Tereza as she is known locally.

At first you think you have landed in an affluent Riviera resort, as virtually every car, and certainly every taxi, is a Mercedes. But when you see the state of the roads, you understand that only very sturdily built vehicles can withstand the potholes and obstacles.

As we drove north towards Shkodera, the capital of the northern province, close to the Montenegran border, the landscape became more impressive visually but poverty more apparent.

Here there are fewer Mercs and more ponies and traps are required to haul entire families of up to a dozen, cartloads of household appliances or mountains of hay or grass.

Bashkim, as well as running the ICA operation in Albania, was our driver for the trip and I was full of admiration for the way he deftly avoided huge potholes that appeared before us, as well as oncoming traffic veering into our path to avoid potholes on their side of the road.

Albania is a country ripe for exploitation through tourism. It combines all the attributes of its Mediterranean neighbours, with a long Adriatic coastline, golden beaches and, in the other direction, dramatic mountain scenery with splendid lakes, forests and valleys.

My first evening in Shkodera will long live in the memory, eating fresh fish caught in the lake, which lay before us like a vast mirror, with distant mountains emerging from the mist and the sun setting over craggy rocks.