Albania Travel Guide: The Riviera, the Ruins and Europe's Best-Kept Secret Budget Trip

Tirana in a day: bunkers, bright paint and strong coffee

Tirana is not pretty in the conventional sense. It is a city of communist-era apartment blocks, many of them painted in stripes of orange, pink and purple by Edi Rama, the artist-turned-mayor who decided that if you cannot rebuild a city, you can at least repaint it. The effect is disorienting and somehow works.

Skanderbeg Square is where it starts. The National History Museum on one side, the Et'hem Bey Mosque on the other, a massive open plaza in between. Blloku, the neighbourhood that was reserved for Communist Party elites until 1991, is now bars and cafes.

The Bunk'Art museums are the reason to give Tirana a full day. Bunk'Art 1 is a massive Cold War bunker outside the city, converted into a contemporary art space and historical exhibit that covers Albania under Hoxha. Bunk'Art 2, in the centre, focuses on the Sigurimi secret police. Both are disorienting. Both are excellent.

Coffee here is Italian-grade espresso at a fifth of Italian prices. A macchiato is $0.50-1.00. Drink several and leave the next morning.

Albania's Riviera, and the beaches nobody mentions

The Albanian Riviera runs south from Vlora along the Ionian coast. The main beaches are well known enough now: Ksamil with its swimable islands, Dhermi with its olive groves, Himara with its hilltop castle and waterfront fish restaurants. The coast road is carved into mountains and the driving is an experience in itself. Goats have right of way.

But the beaches worth knowing about are the ones without road access. Gjipe Beach is at the bottom of a canyon, reached by a 30-minute scramble down a rocky path or by boat from Himara. There is nothing there. No bar, no lounger, no phone signal. Llamani Beach near Saranda is a pebble cove you climb down to from the road. Mirror Beach near Ksamil is a strip of white stone that looks fake and is not.

Himara is the best base. The old town is a castle ruin on a headland. The restaurants below it serve grilled fish and Greek-style salads for $6-8. Porto Palermo, further south, has an Ottoman fortress on a peninsula over a sheltered bay that photographs like a film location.

July-August is peak season. By Albanian standards this means busy. By Croatian or Greek standards it means empty.

Berat and Gjirokaster are the real reason this country makes lists

Berat is called the City of a Thousand Windows. White Ottoman houses with dark window frames climb a hillside above the Osum River, and the castle on top still has families living inside it. The Mangalem quarter is the postcard. Gorica, across the bridge, is the quieter version of the same thing. The Onufri Museum in the castle holds 16th-century icons painted with a red pigment so distinctive that art historians named it after the painter.

Gjirokaster is steeper, greyer and darker. Stone roofs instead of white walls. A massive fortress on the hilltop, cobbled bazaar streets below it, and the Skenduli House, a preserved Ottoman mansion that gives you a sense of the merchant class lifestyle.

Both are UNESCO-listed. Both are walkable in a day. Both have guesthouses inside restored Ottoman houses for $20-40 a night. The combination of the two, plus the Blue Eye spring and Butrint ruins nearby, makes the southern inland route as strong as the coast.

Blue Eye and Butrint: two stops that justify the southern detour

The Blue Eye is a karst spring 20 kilometres from Gjirokaster. Water rises from somewhere deep through a hole in the rock, and the centre of the pool is an intense, almost artificial blue surrounded by forest. The water is cold enough to hurt. Swimming at the main spring is technically banned. A secondary pool nearby is fair game. Fifteen-minute walk from the car park.

Butrint is harder to explain quickly. A 3,000-year-old archaeological site on a peninsula in a lagoon, near the Greek border. Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian layers stacked on top of each other. A Roman theatre. A 6th-century baptistery with original mosaic floors. Venetian fortress walls. The setting, surrounded by wetland with Corfu visible across the water, is half the point.

Butrint gets a fraction of the visitors that comparable sites in Greece or Turkey get. It is one of the best-preserved Mediterranean archaeological sites and it costs almost nothing to enter.

Lake Koman, Valbona and the northern mountains

The Theth-Valbona hike gets all the attention, and it is good: a day crossing the Valbona Pass at 1,795 metres between two alpine valleys. Six to eight hours, not technical, decent fitness required. Guesthouses on both ends serve homemade raki and enormous dinners.

But the Lake Koman ferry is the part people do not expect. The route follows a narrow flooded canyon with vertical walls on both sides and deep green water. The ferry is a converted barge. The journey takes 2.5 hours from Koman to Fierze. From Fierze, a furgon runs to Valbona.

The full loop, Koman ferry to Valbona, hike to Theth, minibus back to Shkodra, takes two to three days and is the single best adventure sequence in Albania. Booking the ferry in advance is a good idea in summer. The departure is early morning.

Money, roads, food and the things you need to know

Albania uses the lek. ATMs work in cities. Bring cash for the coast and the mountains, where card acceptance is spotty. Some places take euros at bad rates. Do not rely on it.

Driving is the best way to see Albania. The roads are improving but rough in the north. Albanian drivers treat lane markings as decorative. Furgons, shared minivans, fill the gaps between cities and leave when full.

The food is Mediterranean-Ottoman-Balkan. Byrek (flaky pastry with cheese or spinach) is the snack. Tave kosi (lamb baked with yogurt and eggs) is the dish. Fresh salads, grilled meat, strong coffee. A full meal costs $5-12. The quality is high for the price.

Spring and early autumn are the best times. April-June for wildflowers and warm weather without the crowds. September-October for the coast after peak season. The mountains are open June to September.