The maldives of europe
You should know by now that I'm a lover of ticking off new countries. If it's somewhere obscure or that not many people have been to then even better. And for ages, at the absolute top of my list has been Albania. Not only is it beautiful, cheap, and on my favourite coastline in the world. But the Albanian Riviera has even been dubbed 'the Maldives of Europe' so I knew a trip was well overdue. Luckily my friend Alice was also dying to go and so the choice of our summer holiday was a bit of a no-brainer!
Actually getting to the Albanian Riviera is the tricky part. There's only one airport in the whole of Albania and it's in Tirana - about 4 hours north of the Riviera. There is the option of flying to Corfu and then getting a 30 minute ferry over, but flights to Corfu were about 3 times more expensive than flights to Tirana, and I was quite happy at the thought of the chance to visit the capital anyway. So we decided to start our trip with a night in Tirana before travelling down to Ksamil afterwards. The hotels were crazy; we chose the Hotel Stela Center and it was such a gorgeous room... £65 for the night including breakfast. Just crazy.
The insanely low prices continued to surprise and delight us from there on basically! We'd flown from London early in the morning so we'd got to our hotel early afternoon and decided to head straight out for drinks. Well, it's not a holiday until you've cheers'd to it right? The sun was shining, and there were loads of nice little bars and cafes with outdoor seating. Oh, and the Aperol spritz' were £3.50!
We then went on a little walking tour of the city using my usual fail-safe method of just going to the things that are highlighted on Google maps and considering them the main attractions. We went to a bazaar, round the main square, through lots of parks, to the Orthodox church, and over the "river" (smallest bit of water I've ever seen referred to as a river before), to find a place for a late lunch. It's not a massive city but it is a lovely one; loads of green space and quaint cafes. Don't go expecting a picture-perfect postcard city though. Albania is a country with a very volatile history and a challenging political backdrop, so there are lots of areas that feel quite run down. However, we always felt super safe and all of the people were so lovely and friendly.
It was golden hour by the time we were done with lunch (which was accompanied by giant goldfish bowl glasses of wine for £2 each). Which ended up being the perfect time to visit the Pyramid of Tirana, as we had a lovely sunset view from the top. We pretty much waited for it to go all the way down, before we walked back to our hotel, passing some more pretty spots on the way including the mosque and the castle.
We'd been up since about 2am so it's fair to say we were getting tired by this point, and the late lunch meant we weren't hungry for any dinner. But being the troopers we are, we still made it out for a drink! Alice and I are both obsessed with rooftop bars and luck would have it that there was a cool one right around the corner from our hotel. I loved the space theme and the views of the city at night were gorgeous.
It was another day of travelling as we were heading down to the Riviera! Saranda and Ksamil (pronounced sam-ill) are both popular spots but having looked at both, we decided on Ksamil. Which we later found out is the trickier one to get to, but only marginally. There's a bus terminal called the South and North Bus Terminal just outside of the main Tirana city centre, where regular coaches run to Saranda every hour-ish. We'd asked our hotel for the timetable ahead of time so we knew when it'd be going and then got a taxi there that morning. What we hadn't factored in, was that Albania is a cash country. And we hadn't thought to get any out. The bus we wanted to get was leaving in less than 10 minutes and the man at the kiosk was very laidback about how I could easily nip to the cashpoint 5 minutes away and make it back on time. So that ended up being a nice little morning run there and back! Alas, I made it back, and we made the bus. It's only the equivalent of £15 per person one way, so don't bother booking any transfers or coaches or anything online before going to Albania - they're minimum double that price, although some companies want hundreds. Just book it when you get there; it's a very well-oiled machine. So we spent the next 4 hours driving through the beautiful Albanian countryside (honestly the views were incredible) before we arrived in Saranda. From there, we could either get a bus or a taxi down to Ksamil (about 20 minutes down the coast). Since we didn't have our roaming on and had no idea where to get a bus from, we got a taxi. They will try to rip you off (the first guy wanted £30) but just haggle and someone will take you for a reasonable amount. Then we were finally in Ksamil! We'd chosen the Hotel Piramida which was only £165 for 3 nights (between us!!) and had a gorgeous pool area to boot.
We'd got the 8:30 bus so we'd arrived in Ksamil by the early afternoon and headed straight out for a beach session! Ksamil seems famous for the boho aesthetic and all the beach clubs with pretty umbrellas. We did have a little wander along but they were mostly the same (and mostly the same price) so we just picked one where the sunbeds were in the sun. It was a lovely afternoon of eating gyros, drinking aperol spritz, and napping on the sunbed (extremely needed after two early starts in a row).
I'd heard there were lots of nice restaurants in Ksamil so I was super excited for dinner! We were both in the mood for seafood so after a quick search for nice seafood spots, we ended up at a place called Ostra. As you can see, very instagrammy vibes, but they definitely didn't sacrifice on the quality of the food because of it. Everything was amazing - I'm always obsessed with octopus on holiday.
We'd known a storm was brewing and boy did it arrive the next morning! The heavens well and truly opened and there was basically a river flowing down the hill of our hotel. By the time we'd had breakfast and got ready though it was easing up. Besides, I'm more of a believer in "life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain". We didn't necessarily dance, but we did head off on a walk down to the lake. It's not a lake technically speaking (it's connected to the sea on the other side) but it is a National Park and it was very beautiful. If the weather hadn't stopped the tours, it would've been nice to get a boat out to see more of it.
The weather proved to be the changeling child all day; blue skies one minute and then torrential rain the next. It wasn't the most perfect destination to have mixed weather; there isn't much of a town or anywhere to explore that you could go to in the event of bad weather. But we decided to take the opportunity to get the steps in and went on a big hike of the coast. Ksamil is essentially made up of 5 different bays and having only made it as far as the first on day one, we thought we'd go and look at all of them. There were loads of pretty beaches and nice bars, and we visited the famous Principotes beach club. Which was entirely empty aside from about 20 staff who were sat around and when asked how much it normally is there, they joked that they'd pay us to be there that day. It was a great excuse to look around though and it was really beautiful how they'd themed it.
We went all the way round to the last bay on the coast (aptly named 'The last bay'), and then worked our way backwards. There were so many scenic spots and we kept getting treated to the sight of the bluest water ever whenever the sun came back out. We managed 14,000 steps in total so we'd definitely worked up an appetite by this point...
When I travel, I always like to try and find authentic restaurants, so we went to one with 'traditional' in the name (it's called science look it up) and had the most amazing lunch. Something I love about waiters in European countries is that they don't believe the customer is always right. I tried to order the mussels and I was met with 'no, they're no good' (because apparently it wasn't the season so they were small). So I swapped my order and it was fantastic. I'm all for it!
The sun had come out properly by this point so we were ready for a little sunbathe. It seemed a bit pointless to pay for one of the beach clubs when it was only a couple of hours, and especially since we'd deliberately chosen a hotel with a pool. So we decided to spend the rest of the day by our pool!
We were both very excited for dinner that night because on our daily little search for restaurants, we'd found a Mexican place. Mexican is my favourite cuisine in the world and while we may have been 6,600 miles from Mexico, it still sounded like the best idea ever. I went with Spanish vibes for my outfit, hair and makeup, and we drank super strong margaritas - very on brand. The food was all incredible and we even made a little friend for the evening.
The sun was beaming the next day (I should think so too otherwise I'd have been having words with the Albanian government). We had the benefit of having walked round the whole bay so we knew where some of the nicest beach clubs were, and we'd also plotted which ones got the best sunset view. So we ended up at the beach club attached to a place called restaurant panorama and got the best sunbed spot on a jetty overlooking the ocean. Could you ever imagine that much thought goes into sunbathing?
Our calculations on the spot we chose proved to be absolutely perfect because look what a gorgeous view of the sunset we had! The sun started setting around 6pm and had set all the way by 7 so we stayed until the last of it had disappeared. Although we hadn't appreciated how cool it'd feel once the sun went in so we were wrapped up in our towels!
Once we'd walked back and warmed up, we were ready for our last evening! Obsessed with the top I wore that night which was a new Shein purchase. The peak season and off season seemed to be a lot more abrupt than I'd been expecting. Since Albania is quite far east and near to Greece, I thought it'd remain a popular spot throughout September (at a minimum). But it was actually pretty quiet while we were there and loads of the restaurants were either closed or half empty. We still found a lovely little spot though where we cheers'd to a great holiday with some giant glasses of wine, and some lethal shots of raki!
Then it was time for the 4 hour coach to Tirana, the usual rigmarole at the airport, the 2 hour flight, then the hellish 2 and a half hour late night drive back from Stansted. The scenery during the coach ride certainly left the scenery on the other parts of the journey in the dust! After being at the top of my list for so long, Albania certainly didn't disappoint and I would recommend a visit to anyone (and will be!).
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