The road from Vlora to Saranda clings to the mountainside above the Ionian Sea, dropping away in places where landslides have taken the asphalt with them. I was riding in a furgon, a shared minibus, with seven Albanians and a goat. The goat was tied in the back and bleated every time we took a corner too fast. The Albanians ignored it and passed around a bottle of raki. This was my introduction to the Albanian Riviera, a stretch of coastline that rivals Greece and Croatia in beauty but costs a fraction of the price and receives a fraction of the visitors.
The Beaches and Villages
The Albanian Riviera is anchored by three towns: Himara, a working-class beach town with a castle and a long stretch of sand; Dhermi, a village of stone houses perched above a turquoise bay; and Ksamil, a small resort town near the Greek border with three islands you can swim to. I stayed in Dhermi for four nights, in a guesthouse run by a family who had converted their ancestral home into rooms. The cost was twenty-five euros per night, including breakfast of fresh bread, feta cheese, and honey. The beach was a fifteen-minute walk down a steep path. At eight in the morning, I had it to myself. By noon, there were twenty people. By European standards, this is solitude.
The Food and Drink
Albanian cuisine is Mediterranean with Ottoman influences. Grilled fish, lamb, and vegetables dominate the menus. I ate a meal of grilled sea bream, roasted peppers, and a salad of tomato and cucumber that cost eight euros, including a half-liter of local wine. The wine was rough but drinkable, made from grapes grown on hillside terraces above the villages. Raki, the grape spirit, is everywhere. It is homemade, often distilled in backyard stills, and ranges from smooth to paint thinner. I learned to accept the first glass offered and sip slowly. Refusing is considered rude. By the end of my trip, I could distinguish between grape raki and plum raki by smell alone.
History and Isolation
Albania was closed to the world for most of the twentieth century, first under a nationalist monarchy and then under Enver Hoxha's communist dictatorship, which isolated the country even from its Soviet and Chinese allies. The legacy of that isolation is visible in the unfinished concrete buildings, the lack of international brands, and the suspicion of foreigners that persists in older generations. But the younger Albanians are different. They speak English, they use Instagram, and they are eager to show visitors what their country has to offer. I was invited to dinner by a group of students in Saranda who wanted to practice their English and hear about life outside Albania. We ate bytriak, a pastry of layered dough and cheese, and talked until midnight.
How to Get There and Costs
The Albanian Riviera is accessible by bus from Tirana, a four-hour journey that costs ten euros. I flew into Tirana from Rome for eighty euros round trip. Within the Riviera, furgons connect the villages for one to three euros per ride. They have no fixed schedule; they leave when full. I spent eight days on the coast and spent a total of four hundred twenty euros, including accommodation, food, transport, and a day trip to the ancient ruins of Butrint, a UNESCO site that spans Greek, Roman, and Venetian history. Albania is not polished. The infrastructure is patchy, the service is inconsistent, and the driving is terrifying. But the coastline is real, the people are genuine, and the prices are honest.
