Albania

JohnCleary

Just off the plane from our latest 5 week trip to Thailand (First non-EU travel since 2019), so looking for our next break which will be end of March / start of April.

Albania seems to be getting a lot of press lately and we're thinking "Go there before it gets too well known".

For anyone that's been, may I ask:

Logistically, most convenient way to fly (I know direct flights are not an option from Dublin)

Very subjective, but 'how long' for? - We're mid 30's, like to get up in the morning and explore whatever city we're based in. We're more into history / architecture then laying about on a beach, but a beach vibe is OK too. At night, we do like to get a little tipsy and float about from bar to bar. On the subject of 'how long', we're thinking 1 week at least, given there'll be connecting flights involved. This wouldn't be a 'main' holiday (we do that for a month in December every year), but more of a 'city break' / 'quick escape from Ireland' vibe.

Thanks all!!

JohnCleary

Just to add:

When we'd be there, we wouldn't be too keen on too much internal travel, unless the public infrastructure is good (a 1hr train / bus drive each way is no problem for a day out to another town / village).

Nigel Fairservice

When I was there I flew Dublin-Frankfurt- Tirana with Lufthansa. Tirana is surprisingly nice. We went on a day trips to Kosovo and Lake Ohrid in Northern Macedonia as well. The coast is meant to be quite nice but didn't see it on this trip.

OEP

I was there in end of June/July, for 10 days. I'd highly recommend it. We flew via London to Tirana, another option is to fly direct to Corfu and get a ferry. Tirana is at the opposite end of the country to Corfu so you could choose that based on whether you want to see more of the south or north.

We spent 10 days there. We had a car, which I would recommend. Driving is fine there, not too hectic or anything. We visited the mountains in the north and did the Valbone to Theth hike. The mountains are beautiful and the hike is really good. It doesn't need hiking experience but you'd want to be reasonably fit - it's not a doddle. We then drove south along the coast and stayed a few nights in Vlore and Himare. I wasn't that impressed by Vlore, it's a big town/small city with a big beach. It has a lot of tacky things like some Spanish resort towns. We did some nice day trips though. Himare is much smaller and nicer. I'd recommend driving as you'd want to do some day trips and you need a car for that. We didn't venture further south but there are lots of other apparently nice towns there, and you could perhaps focus on that end for a week. If you want to do mountains and beaches then you would need 10 days in my opinon.

Edit: It is really cheap, so great value to be had and the food is good.

The Nal

Any truth to it being dirty? Had the dirties beaches and seas in Europe for a while there a few years ago.

Nigel Fairservice

I did see some rubbish strewn about the place when driving around Albania. Shame, parts of it are quite scenic. I haven't been to coastal Albania so can't comment on the beaches.

BArra

noticed a bit of rubbish also in places such as Theth, people discarding their bottles or wrappers of food needlessly, which was disappointing to see albeit still very nice scenery and hiking