Two weeks in Albania

Tirana-Theth-Velipoje-Shkoder&Shiroke

-Krujë-Durres 🇦🇱

29.08.-12.09.2023

We flew to Pristina and stayed there one night, with a morning bus to Tirana approx 4,5h

In Tirana, a big recommendation for Hotel Bujtina e Gjelit🙏 a little off the centre, pool, great staff and varied breakfast.

There are many good restaurants in Tirana, including restaurant Tymi. An atmospheric bar Hemingway bar Tirana, and for cocktail lovers MUGO Tirana.

Tirana was perhaps too crowded for my taste. I’m not really a fan of big cities.

We rented a car in Tirana (Volkswagen golf)

Brix Rental Car (can be found on instagram. You can also ask Arjon Hila for more information, highly recommended, everything worked better than fine with them!)

Traffic in Tirana was chaotic. Fortunately, we didn’t have to drive all the way from the city centre and, miraculously, my husband had the nerve.

Driving to Theth was an experience in itself, driving along the serpentine roads of the mountains, it was exciting at moments, but my husband loved driving there, crazy? 😅

Theth stole our hearts completely. I think everyone who travels to Albania should visit there. We fell in love! The hospitality of the people and the nature, it’s unbelievable! We will definitely be back.

We stayed in Bujtina Miqesia, the friendliest family who owned it and great food🧡

The season in Velipoje was already over when we went (first week of September), the beach bars/cafes were already closed, most of the restaurants were closed, but there were surprisingly many people around!

We stayed at the Bora Bora Hotel with swimming pool a little further from the centre, highly recommended! Friendly staff, varied and delicious breakfast.

Here we noticed that the season had clearly been hard and tiredness was starting to show in some places. We got rude and indifferent service at one restaurant. So we changed restaurants 🤷 and the next one was super friendly, and most of the customers were locals. What tells you a lot! The restaurant where we ate was La Maroja.

Overall feeling; I don’t feel I want to travel to Velipoje again.

Shkoder/Shiroke- We went for a day walk in Shiroke, a cute little town/village.

Delicious and affordable food.

It’s a real shame when I got some kind of stomach bug and in Shkoder I spent time in the toilet/bed. I was able to walk a bit the other night. But it was a shame I didn’t get to see enough. So we still have to return to Shkoderi!

My husband visited the castle of Rozafat.

We stayed at the Sky Hotel, very clean and friendly owners🙏

Krujë – a great place! 🫶 very similar to Gjirokastre with its bazaars.

NOTE! It sucks to drive there 😅

We stayed at Rooms Merlika, lovely old-fashioned accommodation, very hospitable owners and delicious food, a big recommendation!

Durres- we stayed at Hotel Vila Belvedere, a big recommendation! The staff are friendly, clean, delicious breakfast and a large swimming pool.

Durres itself didn’t really inspire any wow factor in us.

The first night at the restaurant we went to, my husbands pizza never came. Well, we didn’t pay for it either, the owner apologised and brought a raki 🤷 no further visit.

The next night we went to dinner at Shkoder restaurant. The place was crowded and there was a bit of a wait for a table, but it was worth it!

Very good food and in my opinion affordable for Durres prices, and very good service!

The third evening we spent at Abaia Winery, where they had also opened a restaurant this spring. Great setting, knowledgeable guides on the wine tour, wine and raki tasting and a very delicious meal to top off the evening. You shoud visit therre!

From Tirana we took a bus to Pristina (at noon, mistake!) We stayed in Pristina for one night before returning home.

To sum up; yes we will travel to Albania for the third time next year🫶

We had two bad restaurant experiences in 2 weeks, quite a few in my opinion, considering we ate out every day!

We had one rainy day, otherwise it was over +30c and sunny ☀️

Tourism in Albania is growing all the time. Try to give the locals a bit of grace. They have a lot to learn with everything as tourism is growing at this rate, and inevitably prices will rise.

I also think that you have a bit of influence on the fact that you don’t choose the restaurant that’s on the busiest promenade that’s full of tourists. They are more expensive, as in other countries.

Of course, all the price screwing etc. it’s not ok. Luckily we haven’t had any of those and we got good and friendly service, all the accommodation we stayed in was more than we could have hoped for🙏

Rosa Antman