[ Every place, with its year ]
46 profiles. The column on the right is this month’s verdict, not a rating.
- ThethA stone-church village on the floor of the Albanian Alps, at the end of a paved road that closes for the winter.
- Valbonë ValleyThe other side of the pass: a wide gravel riverbed under limestone peaks, reached by ferry and a road transfer rather than by mountain road.
- ShkodërThe northern hub: the castle above the lake, the 07:00 furgon to Theth, and the road to the Koman ferry. Almost every Alps trip passes through it twice.
- Lake KomanA reservoir through a karst gorge that doubles as the only sensible way into Valbonë. Transport and attraction in one, for seven months of the year.
- BeratA UNESCO hillside of stacked Ottoman windows above the Osum, with a castle that is still a lived-in quarter and wine country around it.
- GjirokastërThe stone town: slate roofs stepping down a hillside under a fortress, above the Drino valley and an hour from the southern springs.
- KsamilFour small islets in shallow turquoise water, and the most crowded and most expensive stretch of sand in Albania.
- HimarëThe Riviera town that stayed a town: pebble coves under olive hills, a working centre behind them, and prices that have risen at half Ksamil's rate.
- ButrintA Greek, Roman, Venetian and Ottoman site stacked on one wooded peninsula between a lagoon and the channel to Corfu.
- Llogara PassThe SH8 climbing through black pine and dropping in switchbacks to the Riviera. The best road in the country, and open all year.
- TiranaWhere nearly every Albania trip starts and ends: the only airport with scheduled flights, the road hub, and a first or last night rather than a week.
- SarandëThe south's port and its practical base: ferries from Corfu, Butrint and Ksamil within half an hour, and a waterfront that fills in July.
- FierzëThe upstream end of the Koman ferry: a dam, a landing and the road head for the Valbonë valley, and it works for about seven months of the year.
- RazëmA forested plateau at around a thousand metres an hour north of Shkodër, cool enough in July to be the reason to drive up.
- Rozafa CastleThe castle over the point where three rivers meet, three kilometres out of Shkodër, and the one big view in the north that is a drive rather than a hike.
- Shala RiverA clear mountain river running into the top of the Koman reservoir, reached by day boat from Fierzë and open for exactly as long as the ferry is.
- KrujëSkanderbeg's hill town forty minutes from Tirana: a restored bazaar, a castle on the ridge, and the easiest half-day out of the capital.
- DurrësThe country's main port and its biggest domestic beach, with the largest Roman amphitheatre in the Balkans in the middle of the town.
- Bovilla LakeA reservoir in a limestone gorge forty minutes from Tirana, up a dirt road and a short steep climb, and the easiest big view in the country.
- ApolloniaA Greek city on a hill above the Vjosa plain, with a thirteenth-century monastery built out of its stone in the middle of it and almost nobody on the site.
- Ardenica MonasteryA working Orthodox monastery on a ridge above the Myzeqe plain, half an hour from Apollonia and open when almost nothing else inland is.
- Osum CanyonA deep limestone canyon south of Berat whose rafting season runs on snowmelt rather than on the calendar, roughly March to June.
- KorçëHighland Albania at 850 m: a planned nineteenth-century centre, the country's icon collection, and the one town here with a real winter.
- DhërmiA stone village high on the slope with its beaches down a steep road below it, and the Riviera's festival week in early June.
- VlorëThe city where the Riviera starts and where independence was declared, reached by road: the airport here still has no scheduled flights.
- OrikumA small town and marina at the south end of Vlorë bay, where the Karaburun boats leave from and the Llogara climb begins.
- Karaburun PeninsulaThe longest uninhabited coast in Albania, sea caves and cliffs with no road onto any of it, and boats only from roughly May to October.
- Sazan IslandAlbania's largest island and a closed military base for most of the last century, visitable only on an organised boat and only in season.
- Gjirokastër CastleThe largest castle in Albania, along the ridge above the stone town, with a terrace that looks the length of the Drino valley.
- Blue Eye of SarandëA karst spring in an oak wood half an hour inland from Sarandë: very small, very photogenic, and taking a whole coast's day trips.
- PërmetA small town on the Vjosa, one of the last undammed large rivers in Europe, and the base for the thermal baths and the canyon above it.
- Bënjë Thermal BathsStone-walled hot pools on the bank of the Lengarica beside an Ottoman bridge, twenty minutes from Përmet, and at the mercy of the river's level.
- PogradecThe Albanian shore of Lake Ohrid: a promenade, a stony beach, karst springs south of the town and mosaics on the peninsula north of it.
- VoskopojëA village at 1,150 m that was one of the largest cities in the Balkans in the eighteenth century, with several of its painted churches still standing.
- Valbonë to ThethThe crossing between the two Alps valleys over a 1,795 m pass, walkable for about four months of the year and shut for the rest of them.
- Valbonë to ÇeremThe quiet stage of the Peaks of the Balkans, north out of the Valbonë valley to a hamlet with a handful of beds and no shop.
- The Blue Eye of ThethA long out-and-back up the Shala river to a cold blue spring pool, and a different walk depending on whether you start in Theth or at Ndërlysa.
- Grunas WaterfallThe short walk out of Theth, about two and a half hours to the fall and back, and the one to do on an arrival day.
- Mount DajtiThe ridge above Tirana, reached by cable car and walkable from March to November, which makes it the one real mountain day the city offers in the shoulder season.
- Gamti MountainTwo and a half hours above the Bovilla reservoir for the view everybody has seen in photographs, with a short rock step at the top that decides who gets it.
- The Llogara pass trailsPine forest and a 1,000 m drop to the sea, on paths that are at their best in the two shoulder seasons and at their worst in the two months everyone drives over the pass.
- Karaburun peninsula traverseA ridge walk on Albania's emptiest coastline, reached by boat, with no shade, no water and no way off it except the way you came.
- The Gjipe canyon walkA limestone gorge that ends on a beach with no road to it, which is the reason to walk in and the reason to plan the walk out.
- Lengarica canyonA walk up a river through a narrow gorge to thermal water, with the river itself deciding whether it is walkable at all.
- Mount TomorrThe hardest day on this site: 16 km and 1,200 m up a sacred mountain, on a track that decides for you whether the walk is long or very long.
- The Lura lakesA circuit of glacial lakes on a high plateau in the north-east, where the road up is a bigger obstacle than the walk itself.
