Albania - Roadtrip Week 1

Friday 20 September 2024

The sun is setting at the end of our first week in Albania. Tonight we are wild camping on the shores of stunning Lake Skadar which forms part of its border with Montenegro. A fisherman has just concluded his afternoon on the water by shooting what we think was a pelican, raising it triumphantly in his hand. That kind of sums up our experience of our first week - with two different sides to most aspects of life here. On one hand the bird is beautiful and endangered and on the other hand the fisherman believes it is threatening his livelihood.

We’ve travelled the grand total of about 450 miles all week and we’ve driven from the southern border almost to the northern border (the yellow dots on the map). It’s really not a big country! 

Some of our personal highlights so far are: 

Natural 

Beautiful countryside

Benjes natural springs

Beaches (Orikum, Borsh, Livadh)

Lagoon of Potak

Attractive Towns & Villages

Gjirokaster - City of stone

Berat - Town of a thousand windows 

Dhermi

Qeparo

Historical sites

Kadiut Ancient Bridge

Butrint Archeological Park

Apollonia Archeological Site & Museum

Albania is being promoted in the press and by social media influencers as the Mediterranean’s undiscovered “hidden gem”. There are certainly some beautiful beaches, stunning UNESCO towns and historic sites but there’s also another face to Albania which is in plain sight for all to see. The infrastructure is in a really poor state - whether that is crumbling concrete on walls, jetties and hand rails, non existent pavements, huge potholes on busy roads, dismal ‘Welcome’ signs or rubbish being left uncollected for weeks. 

Many areas are being rapidly expanded to accommodate more tourism, not always very sympathetically. The tourist attractions are already struggling to cope with the current visitor numbers. Car parks are gridlocked, town centres grind to a halt and tourist attractions are overrun to the point that it is a turn off. We drove past The Blue Eye Lake car park on seeing the huge numbers of visitors already there and we also did a U-turn in Kruje realising we’d never make it to the castle due to the traffic jam in its narrow streets.

Another concern is the number of private beaches reserved solely for the use of hotel or bar clients. There is generally one small ‘Public Beach’ area - and it’s not overly welcoming. We’re not really beach bums and baulk at the thought of paying €10+ each to hire an umbrella and sun-bed for a day. We brought this one in Italy - a country which also sadly has miles and miles of private beaches.

We have another week to explore more parts of the country, some quite far off the beaten path. We will then reflect on our Albanian road trip in its entirety.