Northern Albania

By Deborah and Johan - We were very impressed by southern Albania. We left Gjirokastër on a high as we chose to walk out of the old City to save our brakes and bums from the cobblestones on a medieval angle (check out the horizontal lines on the wall in this next picture 😳)

We knew that biking straight up the west coast of Albania, wasn’t going to be the most scenic route but chose that route because we didn’t want to go through the big ups and downs of the deep valleys in the east. Instead we were aiming for the Northern Alps. 

The roads going up the western side really aren’t designed for cycling. Highway 4 started ok, busy but with a wide enough shoulder through the Gjirokastër valley to the coast. The rest of the way via Fierzë, Durrës, Lezhe to Shkodër was pretty horrible and dangerous with heavy traffic and hardly any shoulder to speak off. Unfortunately we didn’t like parts of these few days as a result. 

 Luckily for some stretches we found a few rural side roads to avoid the traffic which was a nice relief from the noise and heart stopping rubbing shoulders with trucks. It was worth making a few detours for this and these side roads gave us a good taste of the many small farming communities. A mix of old school manual labour combined with horse and carriage as well as the beginnings of mechanisation with small tractors used for mowing and hay baling. We also biked past a few big sales yards with many small farming machines in stock like ploughs, mowers, small tractors etc suggesting they expect that more farmers will be able to invest in these in the year ahead. There are lots of fruit stalls on the side of the road with different specialities in different areas such as “strawberry country”, “cherry country” and “melon country”

Two of the many low tech green houses in strawberry land which seem to work very well given the amount of produce we saw for sale. 

The towns and cities in the  mid west seemed somewhat run down, especially compared to places like Gjirokastër and Durrës in the South and Shkodër in the North, which probably are benefitting more from the growing tourism industry. In the mid west we saw many deserted buildings as well as unfinished new buildings; similar to what we saw in parts of Greece. The ones that are in use like the ones in the picture above often are in need of maintenance. Nevertheless, however run down a town ship may be, you will always find a small mini market, a cafe and a “Lavazh” in more than one street.  The Lavazh Special is a low tech DIY car wash, often with a small make shift pub/cafe where the men hang out and polish their cars. It seems like a real social gathering place. We noticed that Albanians seem to have a real love affair with Mercedes, from old to very new models. There are many other types of cars around (and quite a lot of very flash ones I may add) but Mercedes really seems to stand out. 

We were pleased to arrive in Shkodër, the start of our three day tour of the Northern Albanian Alps. Shkodër is a cool town, it has a modern European feel to it with some great pedestrian only streets with shops, restaurants and terrasses and because it is flat there are lots of bicycles around too 😍

Here we left those leather saddles for a few days for some more bum relief. We never really knew the “Accursed Mountains”, as these Northern Alps are also know as, existed but we happily squeal on this secret! It’s freaking mind blowing!! It’s accessible because it’s super easy to catch a bus from Shkodër to Komani where you catch the ferry along the lake. Admittedly the bus takes a couple of hours because the road is challenging and mountainous but for 5 euros, my god I’ve happily deserted my lonely bike. For another 5 euros a ferry travels for a couple of hours through reportedly the best ferry ride in Europe - it gives the New Zealand Milford Sound trip a run for its money (Even though there are no Dolphins in this Hydro lake) - you can simply book this online with the very company for a total of 15 Euros for a door to door service from your Shkoder hotel to your Guest house in Valbone. 

Komani Lake is a hydro lake that is nested in a deep canyon so the lake is narrow with the mountains around it going straight up. 

Farming along the lake - boat drop offs for supplies that they pickup from shore with donkey power

After a stay in the excellent Guest House Bujtina Ahmetaj (highly recommended!) we hiked from Valbona to Theth.  We started early because of the weather report suggesting thunderstorms but once again we avoided actually getting wet. As the weather closed in behind us we enjoyed a most fabulous sunny climb over the saddle. 


Goat herders are a common sight throughout Albania - A herd seems to vary from 10 to 50 goats or so. Some herders have a dog but often they just seem to get by with whisteling and waving their walking sticks. 

The track from Valbona to Theth starts with an easy gradient along the river bed slowly revealing ever more breath taking views of the endless valley below. 

Then towards the end when there seamingly is nowhere left to go, the track sharply rises up to the walls of granite and for a while we were puzzled how on earth the track was going to lead us over that range. 

Luckily there was very little snow left. Formally the track is closed from November through to May so it being 31 May we were taking a bit of a chance. Crossing snow in the mountains at this time of the year can be very tricky if not dangerous so we were glad we only had to cross two stretches of 10 to 15 meters or so. 

When you reach the pass at 1850 meters altitude you are literally on the ridge line between the peaks of solid granite with the two huge valleys on either side as the above somewhat distorted panorama shot shows - simply breath taking. 



The way down to Theth is steep, it drops the 1000 meters in altitude we climbed earlier in about half the distance of the track going up. A very different experience with the hill side covered in a colourfull forest dotted with the odd alps meadow which make you burst into song: “The hills are alive with the sound of music” 🎶 

We stayed in a Guest House in Theth for the night before taking the 4wd minibus from Theth back to Shkodër. We had not really counted on this but the 3.5 hour ride out of the valley over two mountain passes is one of the best (and also hairiest) mountain roads we have ever been on. The road just keeps climbing often along very narrow gravel roads.

We highly recommend this Komani, Valbona, Theth circuit to anyone that travels through this part of the world. An absolute highlight of our trip this far. 

Going North from Shkodër we visited Kim and Art in Bayzë, close to the border with Montenegro. I worked with Kim at Orion Health and she recently moved from New Zealand to Northern Albania to live near Arts family. 

Kim, Art and Art’s Mum treated us to some amazing Albanian hospitality and generosity - a wonderful lunch, dinner and breakfast with lots of home made goodies made from the produce of their own vegetable garden and orchard. Kim also treated me to a batch of her famous peanut chocolate cookies and Art brought out his home made Raki. Awesome!  We loved the lifestyle and found it inspiring; something we may look for for ourselves when we get back to NZ. 

Kim and Art with their house and orchard and part of the Bayzë valley in the back ground.

It was an awesome way to end the Albania leg of our trip and to rest our legs before we peddle into the hills of Montenegro and Croatia.