"Wherever you go, go with all your heart" by Confucius

2. What you should know before you go

Bunkers, bunkers and once again bunkers. Long term communist dictator Hoxha was so paranoid that someone could attack his country that he built… million bunkers, one bunker for three Albanians. So where ever you will go in the country, you will likely stumble on several bunkers on your way there, some bunkers like in Tirana are now actual museums and tell the interesting but shocking story of the Hoxhan Albania. Enver Hoxha ruled the country (in different postions) from 1941 until his death 1985.

Something very important about the Albanian culture (although not entirely limited to the Albanian territory) is the term “blood feud” and the Kanun. The Kanun is an ancient legislative code (a kind of common law), which regulates the killing of another human being as a sanction for a murder. The Kanun did set all kinds of regulations in order to improve the coexistance of the population. It had different chapters (Church, weddings, marriage, property, livestock, heritage and so on). The roles between men and women were set very clearly. The man is compared to the “head” and the woman is compared to a “tube”, mostly because she is responsible for carrying things, like kids (because apparently according to this logic, that’s all we do, when it comes to procreation). Everything is regulated, even the dog kept on a chain gets its place, as the protector of the house.

A very important concept is honor. Only one man can have honor, but in the field of reference is his entire family or clan. If the honor was defiled, revenge was taken to restore the man’s honor.

Although parallel law-like codified regulations (common law) existed and still exist in many different countries, the peculiar thing about the Kanun is, that the sanction can be applied to all male members of the perpetrator’s family. More specific, these sanctions can even be applied to the next generation of this family. A woman can’t play an active role in a blood feud. If she commits a murder, the family of the victim is allowed to kill one of her male family members. This practice lead to thousands of dead men until the second world war and resulted in a man shortage. Men used to hide themselves in towers, called kulla, which you can still see and visit in Northern Albania. Some families lived for decades in fear of the potential blood feud. Sometimes, the cause of the blood feud wasn’t known anymore, but it still had to be executed. Many different emperors tried to abolish the Kanun, but with little success. Only Enver Hoxha and his mission to abolish religion and to change the traditional life style turned into a success story. By 1990, the blood feud was not practiced anymore. However, as soon as the regime fell, the practice came back into place. According to calculations, more tha 10.000 boys and men have died due to this practice. Nowdays, families hide their male relatives (boys can’t go to school anymore) or make them leave the region or even the country.

Another thing you should definitely keep in mind is the season. We heard that during summer, the beautiful adriatic beaches are packed with all the Albanians inside and outside of the country. Many of the Albanian diaspora come and spend every summer at the adriadic coast and spend their money in their homeland, though very understandable and loyal, you might want to avoid the summer crowd. We were there in October, it was still a perfect (but definitely running towards the end) time to hike in the mountains and visit the charming cities, although if the beach holiday should play a mayor role in your trip, you should consider the months September and May, because you will find more stable weather conditions and all the facilities and restaurants/hotels in the beach destinations are still a 100% running.

Last, but definitely not least. The Albanian level of English differs a lot (like everywhere I guess) throughout the country. In Tirana we had no problems communicating with younger Albanians, on the countryside, we also usually found someone who spoke English, especially in the hospitality business, but it was much harder and the level of English was sometimes very basic. So if you want to make sure you will be understood and vice-versa, get a data package at the airport (which isn’t expensive at all) and use Google translator or something similar.

3. The places I recommend

We ended spending 10 days in this beautiful and adventurous country and I would say that this was a good amount of time to see a lot of the country. However if you want to add some chilled days at the beach and just relax and take in the chilled adriatic beaches vibes, you should probably stay 12-14 days. Also, we didn’t make it to the ohrid lake, because I have been to the North Macedonian site before.

Tirana

You will most likely begin and end your trip in the bustling capital Tirana and I can imagine that some tourists just want to get out of the city, because on the first sight it might not look as pretty as other Eastern European cities, but I will tell you my opinion why this would be a mistake. Tirana is the place in the country that really allows you to dive deep into the history and like most capitals it is the most modern and progressive city that will give you an idea how different the life of young people in the capital is to pretty much any other place in Albania and why young people, especially young women consider Tirana as the only place for them to live in. If you look at the city more carefully, you will realize that it has lots to offer.

The first point of interest is definetely the main square, where you will find many important buildings of the city, the museum of…, the statue of the national hero and the mosque of.., plus many beautiful government buildings are located around the main square. On this place, you can also experience the peaceful co-existance of the different religions by observing the main mosque there. On the weekends and during the evening on this place, is where you can experience the local life at its best. Families and couples stroll around the place and artists perform different shows. It’s when the place gets filled with life and you experience the free time of Albanians, which in every city often includes strolling around the main avenues parks and places.

Another thing you will notice when you walk around Tirana is the street art and graffiti that you will find on many house walls and which not seldom comes with a political statement.

There are two kind of museums, which I can definitely recommend. One is the big bunker above the city, which was definitely one of my highlights, because it gives you a very detailed insights in the dark communist period of Hoxha and his security machinery. The other bunker is much smaller, but still worth a visit in my opinion and it’s right in the city center and it gives you a compact overview of the time in the atmosphere of a real bunker. However, if you only have time for one museum, I would choose the bigger one. On a different, but important note: the English description in the museum is very much alright, so you will be able to understand most of the content.

Next to the museums and the squares, there is a very interesting church, which doesn’t look like a church at the first sight. There are some nice alleys around the main square and it’s definitely worth to wander around the city and just take in the bustling life of this albanian city, which is definitely like no other place in Tirana. Like everywhere, but here even more so, I would recommend a free walking tour, because you will likely have a guide who lived furing the times of Hoxha or whose parents lived during this time and who will be telling you many personal anecdotes about this time which you most likely won’t find in any guiding book.

Shkodra & Shala river

From Tirana we took the bus to Skhoder, which was very easy and affordable. Buses leave regularly from the Tirana bus duration and it took us around two hours to get to Skhoder. Skhoder is a nice and chilled city in the north of country, which came walked during one dafternoon. There is not thay much to discover, but it has a different vibe than Tirana and the little avenues are cure to walk around, there is also a sweet chapel with a nice square around it. It’s a good and relaxing city, from where you can do day trips to the Shala river, although I would recommend two options much more.

1. Staying a day or two at the Sjala river itself, chilling, bathing, river rafting or kayaking the shit out of this place. There are many beautiful lodges right at the lake.

2. Including the Shala river on your way to Vallbona/ on the way back from Valbona after or before the Valbona/Theth hike.

No matter how you are going to do it, make sure you include at least a boat ride with a small break on the lake side on this beautiful piece of earth. Already the way from Skhoder to the port is incredible and you pass by many beautiful view points on the way, so if you have a car, I would recommend you take your time for this trip. The river itself and the surrounding area is breathtaking, especially the colors of the river and the green of the land, however heads up, you will most likely find tons of trash on the sides of the lake ( hopefully that changed). It was very sad to the see such beautiful places of earth destroyed by humans and this might be a reason for tourists to turn their back o this place in the future. When we did the boat trip, we took a break at a beautiful little place at the side of the river and had lunch there and some defineyely very strong home brewed Raki (yes Albanians do love their Raki, some of them even at any time of the day). The daughter of the family, who was providing us with the lunch and who also rented out a beautiful small apartment right at the river side, was very pleased to hear that we were from Germany and told us that she was going to Berlin to study there in a few months. She obviously isn’t the exception, everywhere we were heard of young people, who went or want to go to Europe to study, most of them at least at that time without the will to go back to Albania. At the same time, we heard a lot of older people complaining about this Symptome everywhere, who are frightened of an increasing brain drain. When you keep in mind that more Albanians live outside of Albania than inside (even though many left right after the “Albanian iron curtain” fell or during the many conflicts with neighboring states) these worries don’t seem unjustified. The other thing I noticed, while we were on the boat was, that the captain people just got off the boat somewhere in nowhere. Nowadays many families, like the one who provided lunch for us are leaving this area to spend the winter in the city, because truth be told, the winters at this beautiful lakes are still very harsh, but those families who do stay during winter get completely burried in snow and cut off from the outside world. This being said, you can imagine that some villages didn’t realize for months that the former dictator Hoxha had died and the regime fell. As a German, this instantly reminded me of the movie “good-bye Lenin” (definitely worth a shot).

Theth-Valbona hike (be prepared for snow in October) the other blue eye

One of my personal highlights was definitely the Albanian highland, especially Theth and the Theth to Valbona hike. Let alone the trip to Theth is spectacular, but should be only done with a good car (not particular a 4×4) and a confident driver, as our shuttle had an accident, but Albanians are not the the best drivers anyways, but that’s another story. Theth boosts with the sweet and still pretty authentic charme of an Albanian highland village, the many blood vengeance towers, a sweet and very old chapel and the gracious mountain range in the back. However, they are building hotels and apartments everywhere, so I doubt it will look like this for long. Shuttles from Skhoder leave everyday at 7 am and 1 pm and pick you up from your accommodation. In Theth your accommodation will arrange a shuttle back to Skhoder for you, or you will end up in Valbona and return to Skhoder, which includes the trip on the Shala river. Whatever you choose, I would recommend to arrive on the day before you go on your Theth to Valbona hike and explore this little village and do the hike to the “other” blue eye as a perfect woman up for the big hike. And on that regard, the sign posting was not the best, when we did it, so make sure you really don’t turn around before you see something similar to the blue eye (that you find online). We turned around on the last bridge, where we saw a sign post with the blue eye, thinking the turquoise water of the river must have been the blue eye, when we were really just 100 m away. What a shame…

As for dinner, there aren’t many good options (restaurants), so taking the dinner offer at your accommodation might not be a bad idea and keep in mind that the slightly higher prices cam easily be explained with the remote locations. If you need to take the long and tedious way up there, your food most likely needs to take the same road. Another heads up, it might get cold at night, especially in the shoulder season and many accomodation don’t have heating, so make sure to pack warm clothes, you are going to need them anyways, when you are hiking in the shoulder season, as we started with sun and heat and on the pass between the Theth and the Valbona valley, ended up completely covered in snow (like you can tell from the picture). This hike is one of my favorite things to do in Albania, because it is easy, everyone with a moderate fitnesslevel can do it, the landscape is diverse, you cross from one valley to the other, you get to experience two different cute villages and you can connect this tour on your way back or on your way there with a nice boat trip on the beautiful Shala river. So this is perfect for everyone, who hates to take the same route twice:) Furthermore the hike is very well sign-posted, so it actaully doesn’t require much explaination (plus there are already a bunch of blogs, who describe every detail of the hike. Another reason, which made this hike special for me was our little companion, who protected us and made sure, we didn’t get lost. From the moment we left our guesthouse, we had this cute dog in the picture on the right, following us. He never left our side and whenever we wanted to take a short cut or left the original path, he made sure we got back on track. He defended us against other barking dogs and we shared our tiny lunch package with him. When we got to the next valley, we called our guest house in Theth and informed them about their missing dog, we were told, that this dog has the reputation of being the guide and patron of his most loved tourists. He always chooses the tourists, he vibes with and accompanies them on their even multi day hikes in the Albanian alpes. When we hoped on our shuttle, we said goodbye to our truest friend, hoping he would safely make his way back home, maybe even finding new friends on the way.

Berat:

For this second part of the trip, we chose to go back to Tirana by bus, which is very easy, buses leave every 30 min and rent a car at the airport in Tirana. We decided to this, because we were planning on doing a round trip from Skhoder to Theth, to Valbona and back to Skhoder, so there was no point on renting a car and then leaving it in Skhoder for a couple days. However, for the next highlights and especially for the coast line, we wanted to be independent, flexible and able to stop at beaches or fishing villages on the way. Even though I was the only driver and albanian driving habits require some getting used to (to put it mildly), this was definetely the best decision.

Now to Berat: Berat, the city of a thousand windows is a very charming and well-preserved 2400 year old Osmanian city with narrow streets and houses with unique roof and chimney forms. In my opinion, one full day is enough to soak in the vibe of the city and discover the most important places. There is also a nice fort on top of the hill, which you should visit. However, beside the view, don’t expect too much of the fort itself, as most of it was destroyed, so you will find mostly remains, including remains of old churches and mosques. One pretty church, which is also used as a foto motive around Albania is the church of the holy trinity. This church impresses with a combination of natural stone. We did a free walking tour, where we learned about the different areas of the city. The side opposite the fort used to be the muslim area and the old city side used to be the christian area. When you walk through them, you can really tell the difference. I liked to stroll around the old city, walk the promenade, where you can (just like in Tirana) experience the local people spending their free time on Sundays or after work, meeting up with friends and family, playing games, chatting, couples kissing on park benches or simply walking to watch and be watched. One building caught my attention was the Capitol hotel, because it can be seen from far and it looks exactly like the Capitol in Washington. After checking it out first hand, I found out that it was almost completely empty, it looked a little bit like it was just a fassade to a fake hotel to me. This just joins the line of many weird appareances, you will make traveling through Albania and which makes you wonder about this unique country and which, but I don’t want to spoiler all of them. You will have to experience some of them yourself.

However, I will also remember Berat, because we just had amazing food in this place. You have probably heard of Lili’s place, because it has been a hit in every lonely planet (and that’s exactly why you definetely need to book this place ahead), but we just had the most wonderful evening at Lilis place. The food is great homemade cuisine, but the best thing about this place are the owners, Lili and his wife, who is the amazing chef behind the place. This man just astonished me, I have never seen someone doing so many things at the same time, working so efficiently and fast and being still so friendly at the same time. I got immediately scared about his health. That being said, we still got lucky enough to chat with him, we had some or more than some Rakis with him and he walked us behind the scenes to introduce us to his wife, where we kept talking about the daily life in Albania. He told us that he opened this restaurants to support his daughters at colleges and he showed us some pictures of his beautiful daughters. So beside the hype about this place, we still felt the personal touch of this place and I would definetely love to go back one time and check on Lili and his family and if it’s only to hear if his daughters finally finished college and to hopefully see him a bit more relaxed than when we left.

Berat is also the city, where we had the best homemade breakfast on a balcony with the best view of the promenade, to soak in the daily life of the locals. The breakfast was all you could ever ask for, from sweets, to homemade pastries, fresh juices, egg dishes, salty things, sausages and so on. The rooms were great value for the price, nothing out of the ordinary, but good standard (disclaimer: like many places, you couldn’t miss the albanian kitsch). However, the place really stood out due to its fabuolous breakfast. And what better way to start your (holi-)day than with a great, homemade breakfast on a nice balcony overlooking the hustle and bustle of the city?

Ksamil: after Berat, we wanted to enjoy the last bits of the late October sun and headed to the beach. On our way from Berat to Ksamil, we decided to take a short-cut and headed on dirt roads straight through the country side. This trip was adventurous itself. The streets I was driving on were the worst streets we saw in 10 days of Albania, full of potholes, where it was clear that you had to drive through potholes, the tasks was just to always choose the most shallow one. We passed through typical rural Albanian landscapes, farmes and little villages, where you could clearly see the prevailing poverty of the countryside. However, what caught my attention were huge mansions once in a while and especially, like everywhere in the country (but let’s get to this later on, in what really surprised me in Albania) one gas station and car wash after the other. And I am saying literally one gas station and one car wash every 2 km, where you would see only fancy German cars, clean and shiny as new on their way to get covered in dirt within the next few minutes by the many potholes. This absurd picture and the extreme contrast left an impression in my head. You didn’t have to be a genius with lots of criminal energy to realise what must be going on there.

With one stop in Vlora, a big resort town, which provides you with everything the package vacationer wants and needs we made it to Ksamil. However, the trip from Saranda to Ksamil on its own is definetely recommendable. When you leave Saranda, you pass on a high pass through the mountaneous region of the coast, where you can experience the gradual change of the landscape and amazing views over the albanian coast line. Like always on mountain passes, the weather is extremely volatile and when we were crossing, there was a bit cloud over the mountains, which led to a temperature drop of 12 degrees and no views at all. Back on the coast, we passed through some authentic and charming little coast towns and fishermen villages with beautiful crystal clear and turquoise bays, where we stopped and had a fabulous fish lunch, kind of the perfect road trip day. Right before we got to Ksamil, we passed through Saranda, yet another, but smaller resort and beach town, where you can find excellent diving schools. Albania until today, seems to remain an undiscovered diving paradise. Finally, we got to Ksamil. In my opinion, this is the perfect place for anyone, who wants the most beautiful beaches, a certain kind of infrastructure (hotels, restaurants etc.), but less package vacationers and a smaller town vibe. Heads up, at the end of october, this place was already pretty empty, many restaurants and hotels were already closed. However, the beach is incredibly beautiful, there are to small islands not too far away, which you can explore with kayaks, that you can rent anywhere at the beach. We took a little romantic kayak trip to the beaches for sunset, where we had the islands completely to ourselves and enjoyed some intimate time:) However, don’t expect any incredible sunset, Korfu (Greece) is blocking your view. Other than that Ksamil, at least outside of the high season is just a chilled beach town, there are also other more intimate and secluded beaches in the area, so if you have a car and enough time, they are definetely worth the trip.

Gjirokaster and the real blue eye

Our last stops on our way back to Tirana were the real blue eye (this time around we really didn’t want to miss it) and Gjirokaster, the UNESCO world heritage city. Syri i Kaltër (the Albanian name of this place) is located more or less halfway between Ksamil and Gjirokaster. The trip there is already worth it. When we were there you had to park your car on an improvised dirt parking space and walk past a big construction site, where they are currently working on building a huge dam to reach the blue hole. I didn’t have high expectations for this place, because I am usually a bit sceptical about all the hyped instagrammable places around the world. However, I do have to admit that the play of colors of this unique nature phenomenon did flash me. Jumping right into the middle, the deepest and coldest part of it (the hole part) was definetely a very cool and unique experience (not for the fainted hearted, because it is very fucking cold). To sum it up: It is a perfect detour on your way to Gjirokaster and shouldn’t be missed, especially if you are an adventurer or an Instagram king or queen.

Last but not least, Gjirokaster was one of my favorite cities in Albania. Fun fact first: The dictator Enver Hoxha was born and bred in this city. You can see a replica of his house, since the original house was destroyed.

The location in the albanian mountains, overlooking the entire valley (watch out, if you are with a car, the streets are narrow and very steep, making u-turns definetely a challenge) is very hard to beat, especially from the view point in the city center and from the castle on top of the city. Second, the style of the houses with their worden roofs, the copper streets and beautiful view points. We went up to the fort, where you will actually find better remains than in Berat and also some good explanation in English. The view from up there was just incredible.

In Gjirokaster, make sure to visit one of the old ottoman mansions. We visited the Fico house and had a little English tour by the daughter of the family. You can get a feeling of how the rich and famous lived in the 20th century and she will tell you about the traditions of a typical wealthy family in the region. The house is definetely a must-see and very well preserved.

In Gjirokaster I can definitely recommend our small mansion Hotel Praga. It was up high enough to have an amazing viewpoint from our lovely balcony and we even had a pool, which I dared to jump in at the end of October (yes it was cold, but worth it). We took the breakfast at the nice terrace next to the pool, surrounded by two beautiful cats. Interestingly and disturbingly enough, this mansion as you can call it, had pictures on their walls with the old dictator Hoxha holding their first horn child. They seemed to be quite big fans of the old dictator. Funny, how capitalism turns people, who seemed to have been fans of a regime that locked itself from the outer wold, into the tourism business, hosting people from all the world., but I guess even the Taliban took the material dollars, so money has no ideology I guess.

4. What surprised me the most

The absolute peaceful coexisting, yet even going hand in hand of the different religions. In all the countries that I visited, I never felt that there is a mutual understanding of Christians and Muslims and people confirmed that in all those dark chapters of the Albanian history, there had never been one about religious conflicts (at least not in recent history). What did surprise me though was the huge influence of Turkey in Albania. Erdogan is trying to deliver an alternative to the so desperately wanted EU-membership. Our guide told us, every time the EU turns Albania down again, the next day, Turkey will provide the country with a new surprise, a new national statue, new funding for a mosque etc. etc. Interesting technique from a country that claims to want the EU membership as well, for over 20 years now.

One thing, I definetely didn’t expect was the incredible hospitality and friendliness of the vast majority of people. Everywhere we went, people seemed to be interested in where we came from and what our opinion on Albania was. Sure, English did not always work perfectly, but unlike other countries, at least in the places we went to, we never felt a real language barrier, sometimes you just javelin to try a little bit. People also seemed to be not used to tipping, because we always got very grateful reactions to normal amounts of tip. In general, we felt that people were very welcoming towards (I have to put it like this, because I don’t know if that was the reason) European tourists. This might have changed in the last year and if not, I fear that a

How many gas stations and car washes can a country sustain?

Corruption, corruption, corruption: Honest people get tired of how some people are making their money (waiter in Berat)

5. Fun facts or unique Infos

What comes to your mind when you hear the term “sworn virgins”? Well my first thoughts went to a fantasy novel. In Albania, this describes a phenomenon of the decision of thousands of women to live their life as a man, at least for the outside world, in order to gain respect and to be able to run a business and manage their household, when the man of the house died or vanished. For this purpose they looked like men, they shaved their heads, smoked and drunk Raki – all things, which were exclusively reserved for the male sex. However, they had to swear to renounce from any sexual contact and procreation in the future. That’s how the term “sworn virgin” came into use. This phenomenon was popular in the 20th century, in Albania and it’s neighbouring country, but it is a true Albanian tradition, which to some extent still exist today in some remote areas in North Albania.

6. Tips for my fellow V-people

Gender stereotypes, old crazy beliefs, machismo everywhere

Driving as a woman: they don’t take you serious!

7. Food you just have to try

Qofter, the vegetable caserole, stuffed paprika, Raki

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