Vlorë to Sarandë, the Riviera

The year · August is underlined

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What to watch for

• The Llogara descent is a switchback with drops and coach traffic in season. It is also where the weather changes: the pass can sit in cloud while the beaches below are clear.

• The SH8 is the only road, so a closure or an accident on it has no detour worth the name.

• Village sections with no pavement and people walking on the road, which is the reason not to drive this at night.

Fuel

Vlorë and Sarandë are easy. Along the coast it is intermittent and seasonal, and some of what is open in August is not in February.

Stops · in driving order

1. VlorëThe city where the Riviera starts and where independence was declared, reached by road: the airport here still has no scheduled flights.on the line
2. OrikumA small town and marina at the south end of Vlorë bay, where the Karaburun boats leave from and the Llogara climb begins.detour
3. Llogara PassThe SH8 climbing through black pine and dropping in switchbacks to the Riviera. The best road in the country, and open all year.on the line
4. PalasëThe first beach below the Llogara pass, and the standing answer to wanting the Dhërmi water without the Dhërmi prices.detour
5. 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.on the line
6. GjipeThe best beach in Albania you can only reach on foot or by boat, and the clearest case on this coast of access doing the crowd control that regulation does not.detour
7. 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.on the line
8. Porto PalermoA triangular Ali Pasha fortress on its own peninsula inside a near-enclosed bay, with a posted price and posted hours, on a stretch the buses skip.detour
9. QeparoTwo villages four kilometres and 450 metres apart: a swimmable pebble beach below, and a half-abandoned Ottoman stone village above that is near-empty even in August.detour
10. BorshThe longest beach on the Albanian Ionian, where the length is the point: in August you walk until the umbrellas stop.on the line
11. LukovëThe far-south Ionian beach that stayed uncommercialised: no beach clubs and no music, on a coast where that is now the exception.detour
12. 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.on the line

The Riviera drive starts by climbing out of Vlorë into the Ceraunian mountains and crossing the Llogara pass at 1,027 m, where the road turns a corner and the whole Ionian coast appears below. The tunnel now bypasses the pass entirely, which makes the climb a choice rather than the only way through, and the choice is the point.

After that it is one road south, past a string of bays that each want a stop. Palasë first at the bottom of the descent, then Dhërmi, then the walk down to Gjipe, then Himarë, Porto Palermo, Qeparo, Borsh and Lukovë before the road turns inland for Sarandë.

The router puts it at 125 km and about three and a half hours, and that is with nobody stopping. Nobody drives it without stopping. Two days is not an extravagance on this leg; it is the sensible reading of the map.