With a pristine Mediterranean coastline and magnificent mountainous interior, Albania was destined to attract intrepid travelers.
A word of advice: go now, before Jared Kushner’s development company completes its $1.4 billion hotel on the 111-acre island of Sazan, just off the coast of the Albanian Riviera.
The region was settled by the Illyrians around 1200 B.C., became a Roman colony, and was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. It won independence in 1912. After World War I, Ahmet Zogu, a clan chief, took over and crowned himself as King Zog in 1928. Under Zog, Italy became an influential foreign power, and Mussolini eventually annexed it, in 1939.
From 1944 to 1985, during the harsh reign of Enver Hoxha, Albania’s single ally was China. Hoxha, a paranoid former French teacher who became a Communist autocrat, pockmarked his country—the only one in Europe with a Muslim majority—with tens of thousands of concrete bunkers. This Vermont-size nation of 2.7 million residents began a turbulent transition to democracy in 1990. Thirty-five years later, its tourist infrastructure provides for a pleasant holiday.
Albania is not a luxury destination, and this is a virtue. The absence of Starbucks, McDonald’s, and other omnipresent international brands offers psychic relief, and the Balkan country’s ornery pride has protected its well-preserved culture.
A stroll around Skanderbeg Square, the vast stone-paved plaza in the heart of Tirana, Albania’s capital, sometimes feels like a visit to the set of a Marx Brothers film. An Ottoman-era campanile clock tower with four lit faces and a set of ocher-and-apricot-painted neo-Renaissance ministry buildings echo the cartoonish Fascist architecture of Mussolini’s Italy. At dusk, the minaret of the Et’hem Bey mosque pierces the rosy haze over this demographically young city of roughly half a million.
A looming new Albanian Orthodox church adds a golden cross to the skyline. Then, at the northern edge of the square, the brutalist block that houses the National Historical Museum is ornamented with a giant polychrome mosaic of Albanians in traditional dress carrying the country’s red flag with a black, double-headed eagle and brandishing shotguns over their heads.
Otherwise, good-value Tirana, more ruffian than regal, lacks the vainglorious imperial monuments, palaces, and promenades of other Western European capitals. There’s no chilly elegance of tourist-oriented shops, cafés, and restaurants, either. Here, the locals still run things.
For an inaugural visit, plan two or three days in Tirana and then rent a car to spend one or two nights in Gjirokastër, a beautiful hill town and UNESCO World Heritage Site of steep cobblestone-paved lanes lined by Ottoman-style stone houses and one of the largest castles in the Balkans.
Conclude by sampling Albania’s superb beaches with a few nights in Ksamil and a day trip to the archaeological ruins in the Butrint National Park, where four ancient cities from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian periods were built on top of one another.
In Tirana, stay at the Rogner Hotel for its outdoor swimming pool in a lush, palm-shaded garden or at the Arte Boutique Hotel, in the lovely Blloku district. Don’t miss a meal at Mullixhiu (the Miller), which chef Bledar Kola opened in 2016 after he returned home from cooking at Noma, in Copenhagen. Since then, he’s been on a mission to revive and re-interpret Albanian cooking, a delicious mix of Balkan, Mediterranean, and Turkish influences, after the ravages of Communist poverty and collectivism. Try the calf’s brain with pickled cabbage; persimmon, pumpkin, and sun-dried-tomato salad; and one of the Albanian pastas, maybe the petka with duck and porcini.
In Gjirokastër, the atmospheric Hotel Kalemi in a 200-year-old mansion is an Ottoman time capsule with coffered wooden ceilings and kilim carpets on the pine floors. It’s a great base from which to discover the city.
In Ksamil, avoid the crowded all-inclusive resorts favored by beach-loving Italians and stay instead at the Manta hotel. It’s located on a forested spit with direct access to the turquoise Ionian Sea surrounding it, and its restaurant serves Italian dishes and the local catch of the day to a lively cosmopolitan crowd of couples from Berlin, Vienna, Milan, and elsewhere.
It’s highly recommended to work with a local travel agency to plan your itinerary and make your bookings. Run by Elton Caushi, a warm, detail-oriented, multi-lingual Albanian who lived in Geneva for eight years, Albanian Trip is Air Mail’s favorite.
Also note that the translation apps haven’t yet aced Albanian to English. During a recent trip, a genial restaurant host deep in the countryside greeted me, according to one app, by saying, “Welcome, and I must insist that you sleep with my mother.” What he really meant? “Enjoy a view of the mountains.”
Room rates begin at $150 per night at the Rogner Hotel Tirana, $125 at the Manta, $75 at the Hotel Kalemi, and $150 at the Arte Boutique Hotel
Alexander Lobrano is a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL. His latest book is the gastronomic coming-of-age story My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris
