Visit Albania .guide

Albanian Alps · hike

The Blue Eye of Theth

A 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.

August: best. The busiest month on the path, so start early.

The year · August is underlined

The Blue Eye of Theth: viability by month
RegionJFMAMJJASOND
The Blue Eye of Theth

The walk

Distance10 km
Ascent300 m
Time4.5 h
TrackGPX in preparation

Dated facts · every figure carries the day it was checked

WhatValueChecked
The road inPaved since September 2021; typically closed mid-November to late March or early April2026-08-25 · Albania Voyagers, Shkodër to Theth (2026)
Getting to the trailheadFurgon from Shkodër 1,200 lek, 07:00 from the Rozafa Hotel, about 2.5 hours2026-08-25 · Koman Lake Ferry, Shkodër to Theth shuttle

The Blue Eye is a spring pool in the gorge above Ndërlysa, cold enough that most people get in once and then get out. Getting to it is the day: about 10 km there and back with 300 m of climbing, four to five hours at a walking pace, and a last half hour on rock and wooden ladders beside the water.

Where you start changes the walk more than anything else does. From Theth village it is the full distance along the river track, which is a decent walk in its own right. Most people take a vehicle down the rough track to Ndërlysa and walk up from there, which turns the day into a couple of hours, and it is why two visitors can give completely different accounts of the same trip.

It is worth checking the water before committing. In late spring the crossings on the approach can be high enough to be a nuisance, and the pool is at its most saturated blue once the melt has passed, in high summer and early autumn.

Nearby

The stone church of Theth on the valley floor beneath the limestone walls of the Radohima massifAI imageThethA stone-church village on the floor of the Albanian Alps, at the end of a paved road that closes for the winter.Grunas Waterfallno photograph yetThe 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.Valbonë to Thethno photograph yetThe 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.