Trekking Albania’s Theth-Valbonë trail
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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. It shares a border with Greece, is a convenient boat ride away across the Adriatic Sea from Italy and not much of a drive from Dubrovnik in southern Croatia. Yet, Albania is a bit of a dark horse when it comes to Indian travellers.
This shouldn’t necessarily be the case: the Balkan nation, whose biggest airport in its capital city Tirana is named after Mother Teresa, has great mountains in the north that offer brilliant hiking, and busy beaches in the south to laze in the sun. Ever since things became expensive in Croatia after the country’s switch to the Euro last year, Albania has emerged as a runaway hit among Europeans seeking affordable adventures and holidays. The convenient part of visiting Albania is that its currency, the Albanian Lek, is almost the same value as the Rupee, and that saves us all the mental math and conversions that come with foreign holidays.
Getting there is rather convenient too—there are direct flights on the low-cost carrier Wizz Air from Abu Dhabi and Doha and Fly Dubai from Dubai. The beach towns of Saranda, Vlorë, Ksamil and Himarë in southern Albania have become popular among European tourists, and that’s led to a spike in prices as far as restaurants and bars are concerned. After a hot and uncomfortable summer in France, warm, crowded and expensive was a combination I was expressly avoiding.
So, I dashed to the mountains in northern Albania, where one of the most popular things to do is to hike in the Albanian Alps. By doing so, I found myself in the charming city of Shkodër, about 2 hours from Tirana, on the foothills of the Albanian Alps near Lake Skadar, which spans from Albania to Montenegro. It’s the closest big city to Theth and Valbonë, the two
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