Albania Travel Guide: Sea, Mountains and Wine

There is a restaurant next to the stairs. The view from here is beautiful, and the prices are exactly the same as in any other restaurant in Albania. It seems to us that you don’t even need to look at the menus — prices are the same everywhere. Here you can not only drink wine or coffee but also have a snack or a full lunch. We only drank water after the climb up and down. Unfortunately, there is no way to reach Bovilla by public transport. You can either buy a tour or come in a rental car.

No matter how many reviews I read, everyone warned about a terrible road. But it turned out to be completely untrue — we reached the very stairs in our rented blue Mercedes without any trouble or problems.

Bunkers

Bunkers are Albania’s hallmark. You will encounter them absolutely everywhere: on the beach, by the sea, even in the sea, in the mountains, and in the center of Tirana. There are no exact counts of the number of bunkers in Albania, only guesses and legends. I’ve read about 200,000, but I like the figure of 700,000. With an Albanian population of about 2 million, that was one bunker for every 3 people. Of course, the coolest, deepest, and most nuclear-proof ones belonged to Hoxha and his inner circle. These two bunkers — Bunk’Art 1 and Bunk’Art 2 — only recently became open to the general public and were turned into museums.

About three kilometers of tunnels, five floors, and over a hundred rooms hidden behind thick reinforced concrete doors — this is what the country’s main bunker, intended for the Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha and his entourage, looked like.

The bunker was completed by 1978; a few years later, Hoxha passed away, and a thaw in relations with other countries began in Albania. Thus, the bunker became useless. It was only in 2014 that its doors opened to tourists.

These museums show the bunker’s structure (thick walls, iron doors, air purification systems) as well as the life of ordinary people during the so-called “Soviet times.” It’s a fascinating museum to understand the lifestyle of that era. Personally, I felt how much we have in common with the Albanian people.

Entry Cost: 700 LEK

Opening Hours: Wed-Sun – 9:00-16:00

Cable Car

Coordinates: Dajti Ekspres Cable Car

Ticket Price: 1400 LEK for adults, 800 LEK for children and dogs

Opening Hours: 9:00 – 18:30, CLOSED ON TUESDAYS

The cable car length is 4.7 km, travel time is 15 minutes, with an elevation gain of 812 meters.

At the beginning of the journey, you will see houses, cows, and horses under the cable car cabin. Later, there are only mountains and forests. The cabin windows are quite worn and scratched, but you can still see almost everything if you try.

I expected there to be activities and walking paths at the top. But up there, besides a restaurant and an observation deck, there were, of course, bunkers. I knew bunkers in Albania were everywhere. During my first month, I was very surprised to see them in places where I least expected.

Swimming Pools

We were in Tirana in mid-June. At this time, terrible heat and stuffiness settle over Albania, especially in Tirana since there is no sea. Therefore, every evening we went to the water park located next to the central park. I wouldn’t call this place a water park because the slides are quite laughable: one for toddlers and one for adults, which was always closed.

However, the pools are excellent — 50 meters of pure bliss.

Free entry after 6:00 PM

But for some reason, locals don’t go to these pools, and we almost always swam alone.

Coordinates: Kompleksi Aquadrom Tirana

Kruja

A small town 30 minutes from Tirana and an hour’s drive from Durrës.

You can easily get here by public transport: minibuses run every hour from both Tirana and Durrës.

The castle and fortress walls are preserved here. There are 2 museums: the Skanderbeg Museum about the history of Albania (though English descriptions for exhibits are lacking), and the nearby Ethnographic Museum. The latter is highly rated and shows how people lived in the past. However, more and more guesthouses are appearing in small villages. On Booking, you can reserve rooms in houses that are 200 or more years old, where owners treat you to real homemade food. We stayed in such a house near Përmet.

Kruja is on a mountain, so you can perfectly see Durrës, the sea, and even a bit of Montenegro from here. There are hiking trails to a real cave and a restaurant with a stunning panoramic view.

I have a separate article about Kruja.

Berat

After staying in Tirana for a few days, we rented a car and went to explore and enjoy Albania. Our route was Tirana — Ksamil, stopping at all the cool places along the way. And all the cool places are exactly on the way. The first stop was the town of Berat. Tours run to Berat from Tirana and Durrës, and minibuses come here from all Albanian cities. But we just stopped here for lunch and to stretch our legs after a couple of hours in the car. I liked Berat. Since we live in Albania, I think we’ll come here sometimes for the weekend, but if time is short, a couple of hours is enough.

Berat is one of the most beautiful cities in modern Albania and one of the oldest. It was founded about 2,500 years ago by Greeks, then became part of the Roman Empire, Byzantium, was captured by Bulgaria, then Byzantium again, then Serbia, and from 1431 to 1912, it was under Ottoman influence.

Berat is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is often called the City of 1,000 Windows. Many houses and churches built in the 13th-14th centuries are preserved in Berat. It’s lovely to walk through the narrow cobbled streets. I was surprised that in this historical place, there are not just restaurants and hotels, but ordinary people living in the same houses their ancestors lived in 5 centuries ago.

Durrës

Durrës is the city we chose for our permanent life in Albania. We like that there is a good American school for our child here, our apartment is a few minutes’ walk from the sea, and there is a large Russian-speaking community. In general, the last point was decisive.

Vlorë

Salt Factory and Flamingos

The lakes only turn this bright color in summer when the heat begins.

Salt lakes turn bright due to the presence of microscopic algae, namely Dunaliella salina, which produce carotenoid pigments, mainly beta-carotene, coloring the water pink. High salt concentration in such lakes creates an ideal environment for these algae, while sunlight and high temperatures further enhance pigment production.

Coordinates: Pink Lake and Flamingos

Restaurant with Deer

In 2025, a tunnel was opened between Vlorë and Dhërmi, so you no longer need to drive along the serpentines over the pass. But at the very beginning of the serpentine, there is a very interesting holiday base.

Address: Llogora Tourist Village

There are no breathtaking views here, but there is a thick pine forest, fresh air, summer coolness, and most importantly — deer. Deer just live on the grounds of the holiday base, walk on the lawns, and are generally very friendly to people. I was absolutely delighted after cuddling with the deer: in real life, they are very cute, friendly, and used to people because they get fed.

You don’t have to book a night at the hotel to cuddle with the deer. Although the hotel is great — cute houses, a large territory with a playground (a rarity in Albania), a pool, and a sauna.
Entry to the grounds is available for 100 LEK for any tourist. If you plan to eat in the restaurant, entry is free.
Deer food can be bought on-site for 50 LEK or you can bring your own. Deer like carrots and apples, and staff also suggested feeding them plain bread.
In spring, during the breeding season, the deer live in enclosures as they can be dangerous. They are not free-roaming until about April and you cannot interact with them like that. But in May and summer, they are friendly and let you pet them, but only if they see food in your hands.

Ksamil

If you’ve heard a mention of the “Albanian Maldives,” it was about Ksamil.

As it turned out, Ksamil’s beaches are filled with tourists as early as May. But on the coast from Vlorë to Ksamil, there are several villages that in some aspects are even more interesting than Ksamil.

Qeparo is a small village 70 km from Vlorë. It has a long wide beach, and there are fewer hotels than rooms in those hotels. Therefore, the beaches are quite free even in peak season.

Read more about Qeparo and what to do there here

Gjirokastër

Gjirokastër is a city in southern Albania with about 20,000 residents. The city has museum status and is Hoxha’s birthplace. We went to Gjirokastër 3 times, but each time there was almost no time left for the city itself to wander the cobbled streets and look at the houses. Around Gjirokastër there are many beautiful natural attractions where we spent most of our time.

The Blue Eye (Syri i Kaltër)

Coordinates: The Blue Eye

Opening Hours: 7:00 – 19:00

This is the peak season schedule. In winter, it gets dark at 4 PM, and I don’t think you’d want to walk through the forest in the dark.

The Blue Eye is a spring famous for its color. The water is exactly that bright turquoise color, looking just like the photos. The spring gushes from underground at a rate of 6 m³/s, the depth is 45 meters, and the water temperature is around 13 degrees Celsius year-round. The pool has an unusual color — deep dark blue in the center and bright light blue at the edges.

Officially, swimming is prohibited here, but if you really want to, you can—though you won’t swim far in 13-degree water.

The Blue Eye is located halfway between Sarandë and Gjirokastër.

You can’t reach the Eye directly by public transport. But you can take a minibus from Sarandë toward Gjirokastër, get off on the highway, and walk a few kilometers. If traveling in your own car, you cannot drive right up to the spring. You leave the car at a huge central parking lot and then walk about 1.5 km. You can rent a bike or electric scooter for 500 LEK, or use the electric train service, but we walked and found the road in the heat a bit difficult.

This is not the only “Blue Eye” in Albania. There is an attraction by the same name in the Albanian mountains, in Theth. And yes, we like the second one better.

Ali Pasha Aqueduct and Waterfall near Tepelenë

The aqueduct is located 20 km from Gjirokastër.

Geolocation: Ali Pasha Aqueduct

The aqueduct was built in the 19th century. According to some sources, it is an original structure; according to others, the original was destroyed by an earthquake and this is a restored copy. I don’t believe the second version at all; given the state of some houses in Tirana and Durrës where there’s no money for basics, it’s unlikely the government would restore a structure that now has no practical purpose. So we’ll consider it a 200-year-old original aqueduct.

There are quite a few aqueducts in Albania; a well-preserved one is in Shkodër. Но this one is the most beautiful because of its location in such a picturesque canyon.

You can easily drive here, and there are walking trails. We were a bit scared because in some places the path is quite eroded, and a wrong step leads to a fall into the abyss. We didn’t go far, but the views were magnificent. There are no cafes nearby, so a thermos of tea and a burner for making fresh coffee are MANDATORY. If you are brave enough, you can even have a snack sitting on top of the aqueduct.

If you drive 10 km further along the highway to the village of Lekdush, you can see a waterfall.
The waterfall is beautiful, but it’s a bit hard to find the first time. The main thing is not to miss the sign for the trail. Right on the highway, here is the exact geolocation, there is a sign. Follow this sign to turn onto a path that goes down into the gorge. The descent doesn’t take long — about 10 minutes; the trail is good and not dangerous.

Bënjë Thermal Baths

In southern Albania, 70 km from Gjirokastër, are the Bënjë thermal springs.

Location: Langarica Canyon

Cost: Free

The springs are wild, therefore free. They are located in a canyon. The photo above shows the largest bathing pool. if you go deeper into the canyon, there will be several more pools, but they are smaller and fewer people go there, so it’s quite deserted.

The water temperature is not as hot as one might hope. We were there on a warm March day when the air temperature was around 20 degrees, and swimming was pleasant but slightly cool. If the air temperature were lower, it would be very cold.

It’s insanely beautiful here: bright turquoise water in the pool, snow-capped mountain peaks on the horizon, and the old Ottoman bridge give the place a special atmosphere.

There are several hiking trails here, both along the canyon and up into the mountains. The trails vary in length; there is one to Ogdunan at 1.7 km and the longest to Petran at nearly 14 km.

Cafes and Restaurants

Usually, I write about interesting cafes and unique restaurants when describing cities. But agrotourism is quite developed in Albania. This is a restaurant format where everything served is grown by the owners. They make their own wine and pomegranate juice, raise geese and goats for fresh meat, make their own cheese and ham, and grow vegetables. Therefore, such restaurants are located in villages between cities. They deserve special attention. We planned to just stop for a snack and quickly move on several times, but you should set aside a few hours for a meal here — besides the delicious food and wine served at a leisurely pace, these restaurants have large beautiful grounds with farm animals and often offer production tours.

Mrizi i Zanave – Restorant Agroturizëm

The restaurant is located between Tirana and Shkodër, 15 km from Lezhë.

It was in my bookmarks for almost a year. And I consider it an unforgivable crime that I didn’t visit earlier.

A special feature of this restaurant is that there is no printed menu. They change menu items frequently, so they don’t print it. At first, this is confusing, as you fear the price will be exorbitant. Our late lunch/dinner cost 65 Euros for 4 adults and 1 child. The meal included a liter of red wine, 2 types of meat, pasta, and a set of appetizers. The appetizer set is a separate kind of pleasure. It includes everything: several types of cheese, sausage, ham, several types of bread, pickles. It was incredibly filling and incredibly tasty. Truly hard to find such delicious shish kebab — the meat melted in your mouth. As a compliment, all guests receive pomegranate juice, a small fruit plate for dessert, as well as unlimited bread and water.

All of us — from the youngest to the oldest — were struck by the restaurant grounds. Here, chickens live in one place and can be petted and fed; geese graze under olive trees — 100, 200, or 300 of them. I had never seen so many geese in one place before!)) And for “dessert,” a ride on a train made of old iron barrels. It feels like you could spend half a day here.

They also have an inn where you can stay the night.

Kompleksi Dea

The most baby-friendly restaurant is also on the way to Shkodër. The grounds are insanely beautiful: many flowers, trees, and most importantly — ponds and rivers right on the restaurant territory, home to hundreds of fish. Also, the tables are located in treehouses right over the pond. You can feed the fish by throwing bread from your table. Sitting and eating while hundreds of fish swim beneath you is quite the experience.
Location: Kompleksi Dea

Public Transport and Car Rental

When traveling with a family, renting a car is cheaper, even in high season.

Of course, the rental cost depends on the car, season, and day of the week. In winter on weekdays, a car costs about 15 Euros, but in summer, of course, it’s significantly more expensive. Our most expensive rental car was this beauty—our absolute favorite. The cost for a 24-hour rental at the very peak of the season, in June, on a weekend, was 70 Euros. Seems like a very humane price.

Petrol is very expensive in Albania. A liter of diesel or 95 costs 160-170 LEK. Renting a Mercedes can be very expensive due to fuel costs. Но this convertible turned out to be very economical. 4000 LEK was enough to get from Durrës to Theth and back—that’s 350 kilometers along serpentines.