Durrës

Getting there

car, bus, boat. Forty minutes from Tirana on the best road in the country, and the terminus of the ferry routes from Italy, which makes it the usual entry point for a self-drive trip. The beach strip runs several kilometres south of the port and the traffic along it is the slow part of any visit.

Parking: Paid lots behind the beach strip; the old centre is largely pedestrian.

Photography

Best light: golden, sunset.

The beach faces west and the whole strip is an evening subject. The amphitheatre is the opposite: it is a hole in the ground in the middle of the town and needs the sun high enough to reach the floor of it. A working port is not a place to fly. Check drone requirements with the AAC before travelling.

Drone: not confirmed. Albania's registration requirement is reported differently by every secondary source, so verify with the AAC before you fly.

Durrës is two things stacked on each other. It is Albania's main port, where the ferries from Italy land and where most self-drive trips begin, and it is the country's biggest domestic beach, a strip of hotels running several kilometres south of the harbour.

In the middle of the town is the largest Roman amphitheatre in the Balkans, built into the hillside in the second century and still only partly excavated, because a neighbourhood sits on top of it. The archaeological museum on the waterfront is the other reason to stop.

The beach is a domestic institution rather than a scenic one. In July and August it is saturated; in June and September the same sand is half empty. If it is the Ionian water and the coves you want, that is four hours south, and this is not a substitute for it.