Albania experiences
Experiences in Albania written by travellers
Take a cup of hot and go on an armchair trip!
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4 great weeks in the Balkans
(Kosovo-Albania-Macedonia-Kosovo), of which just under 3 in Albania. The route was Pristina-Prizren-Gjakova-Bajram Curri- Valbona- Theth-Shkoder-Tirana-Vlore-Llogara-Dhermi-Gjirokaster-Berat-Pocradec-Ohrid-Pristina. This was my second time in Albania (the previous one was 7 years ago) and yes, many places had changed a lot! The people are just as friendly and lovely – maybe even more open.
There was one hospital bed in between, but the treatment went smoothly and the journey continued after a short rest. The glasses were twisted, but what the optician shops wouldn’t fix was done by a genuine street stall craftsman for 3 euros in 15 minutes in Tirana.
The screen of the phone was completely shit, but the little phone shop in Vlore fixed it in 24 hours (in Finland it would probably have been sent to somewhere in Nevada and taken a month).
The journey went smoothly by vans, buses, dark “taxis” and hitchhiking – sometimes more and sometimes less smoothly, but that was already known and familiar – just adds to the flavour of the journey.
The raki helped with many ailments and I had to ship it home. Thanks especially for the mosquito spray tip to the people who tipped in this group! By the way, have you ever noticed the certain smile that almost invariably appears on the face of a raffle owner/server when you order raki? They are justifiably proud of their achievements.
There are so many pictures, from which I tried to pick some from the Albanian side. They’re as jumbled and disorganised as my own head at the moment, but I’ll try to add the names of places or those who have visited them can browse.
Now working on a dream of a 1-2 month internship in Albania next spring (in the field of natural products & their processing). Hard language learning to get at least some helpful basics and I was wondering, how could you reach Albanian speakers in your area, if you could get some extra boost for online courses and buy some informal language lessons…?
There seem to be people living in Albania here, so I’m asking if it would be easier to get to the bottom of things, as my brain doesn’t have time to Google in the throes of this homecoming frenzy. I wonder how the permits are? I do my internship for free, but with the school I have to sign certain papers with the “employers”…do I need the same permits as for those officially employed? I can find out more in due course elsewhere, but if anyone has any information, it will be gladly received.
Faleminderit shumë!
Heta Nevalainen
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 and took the morning bus to Tirana for approx. 4,5h
A big recommendation in Tirana is Hotel Bujtina e Gjelit🙏 It’s located a little further out of the city centre. It has a swimming pool, great staff and a varied breakfast.
There are many good restaurants in Tirana. Worth a mention are restaurant Tymi, the atmospheric bar Hemingway bar Tirana, and for cocktail lovers MUGO Tirana.
Tirana was perhaps too crowded for my taste and I’m not really a fan of big cities.
We rented a car (Volkswagen golf) in Tirana.
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, I didn’t have to drive all the way from the city centre and, miraculously, my husband had the nerve.
The drive to Theth was an experience in itself, driving along the serpentine roads of the mountains. I was nervous at times, but my husband loved driving there, crazy? 😅
Theth stole our hearts completely. I think everyone who travels to Albania should visit it. We fell in love! The hospitality of the people and the nature – it’s unbelievable! We will definitely be back.
We stayed in Bujtina Miqes. The friendliest family held it and served amazing food🧡
The season was already over when we went (first week of September). The beach bars/cafes were already closed and most of the restaurants were closed, but there were still a surprisingly large number of people out and about!
We stayed at the Bora Bora Hotel with swimming pool on the side – highly recommended! Friendly staff, varied and delicious breakfast.
Here we noticed that the season had clearly been hard and that fatigue was starting to show in places. We got rude and uncaring service at one restaurant, so we changed restaurants 🤷 and the next one was super friendly, and most of the customers were local, so that says 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 – cute little town/village. Delicious and affordable food.
It’s a real shame when I got a stomach bug and in Shkoder I spent time in the toilet/bed. I was able to go for a walk the other night, but I was left feeling a bit bored because 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, which was very clean and had friendly owners🙏
Krujë – a great place! 🫶 very similar to Gjirokastre with its bazaars. NOTE! It sucks to drive there 😅
We stayed in Rooms Merlikassa, which had a lovely old-fashioned accommodation and very hospitable owners and delicious food – highly recommended!
Durres – stayed at Hotel Vila Belvedere – highly recommended! The staff are friendly, clean, delicious breakfast and a large swimming pool. Durres itself didn’t really inspire any wow factor in us.
The other night at a restaurant my husband’s pizza never came, well we didn’t pay for it either, the owner apologized and brought a hail 🤷 No more.
The next evening we went to dinner at Shkoder restaurant. The place was packed 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 the price level in Durres. We got very good service on top of that!
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 – go!
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 two weeks, which I thought was pretty low 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 about everything, too, with tourism rising at this rate, and inevitably prices will rise.
I also think that you have some influence on not choosing the restaurant that is on the busiest promenade that is full of tourists. They are more expensive in other countries too.
Of course, all the price screwing etc. not ok. Fortunately, we have not had any of these, and received good and friendly service. All the accommodations we stayed in were more than we could have hoped for🙏
Rosa Antman