Dhermi - Himare - Ksamil - Tirana
We have just returned from our trip from Albania and rather than wait weeks to sort out content, get all our stories together and convince ourselves the trip was even better than it was - we want to provide a quick fire review/realities of travelling Albania. We hope to do this with all our trips going forward as we feel it will give a more genuine feedback to other travellers than viewing everything through rose tinted glasses.
SO ALBANIA!!! The so dubbed 'Maldives of Europe'.....i am not sure who exactly dubbed it this but it seems influencers everywhere have jumped on this bandwagon and peddle it as much as the next person. Probably because they are getting paid by hotels and tourist boards in Albania to advertise their products (shockingly) and so jump on the never ending bandwagon. I mean surely not everywhere you go can be good right? How many bloggers do you find recommending you not to go somewhere - odd huh? The photos below will literally show you what i mean.....one - the reality, the other - the heavily edited version.
So here we have it - the real Albania! Or is it? This is taken at Gjipe beach...yes the very famous one that requires a 2km hike down to. So this must be the real one right? WRONG! See below
This on the right is the reality. A busy beach (and trust me that's me trying to have as few people in the photo as people), a pebble beach and some slightly blue sea. Like everywhere you go in Albania you will be like 'surely this can't be it.'
Our theory has many elements to it. Maybe these people have never been to the Maldives? Maybe these people are so used to backpacking about Thailand and Laos that the reality of somewhere 'bouji and chic' is so far removed in their heads from what most normal middle class people expect that they think a beach club with some fake palms trees blaring out Eurotrash techno music is actually this!? BUT don't get us wrong! There were some good parts to Albania and some parts we will recommend.
So we're going to start with the negatives up front and get them in early.
THE UGLY
Building sites: Albania is a building site. Sure the beach front places are developed and looked fairly tidy. But wander one street back from this and there is unfinished building works, rammed car parks over spilling on to roads and to be honest dirt everywhere. You don't get that in Maldives, Ibiza, Mallorca, Almafi Coast etc etc. But anyway on they build.....the beaches don't have the space for this, the roads don't have the ability to handle this traffic. By next year onwards the place will be unbearable.
The Driving in Albania: Whoever said driving in Albania is safe compared to European Countries is having a mental break down. I have driven in many countries round the world in places such as Egypt, Morocco and some other Middle Eastern countries i'll keep to myself - Albania was the most mental place i have driven. The overtaking on blind corners on mountain roads, the cars parked/stopped wherever they want on main roads, the lack of any concern for any other road user is staggering. The coastal road from Dhermi to Ksamil - good luck. As for driving in Tirana - pay for that insurance from the hire car company! (Disclaimer - i drove every mile of our trip so i can speak from experience)
The BAD
The Service: If you hear the Maldives, Andtrax, Sardinia...You think ££ and you think good service. In Albania the service is woeful....we thought it was just us, but having met up with several groups and friends along the way they all said the same. The service is painfully slow, you have to ask for service 24/7...whether you want a menu, want to order, want some more water, want some salt.....whatever it is - it takes ten minutes. There were exceptions, mostly confined to the hotel staff who are good and helpful but in restaurants it is terrible.
The Beaches of Albania: White sandy beaches i hear you exclaim! Check out the numerous posts on Ksamil.......Let's set one thing straight, none of the beaches on the entire Albanian Riveria are sandy. Not one. They are pebble and shingle - it is not an issue, but why advertise that? It is like they have seen 'this is what people like' and advertise for that. Gjipe, Gamma, St Andrea, Dhermi, Himare, Ksamil......They are all pebble.
Beach Layout/packed: Ok so they are pebble, so what? There must be loads of space, i'm thinking Val d'Lobo, i'm thinking the west coast of France, i'm thinking Morocco? Big open beaches with lots of space for families to play, people to do sports? Again wrong. The beaches in Albania are to a metre covered in sunbeds and parasols (all for rent at high expense - $30 for two), not one inch is left for anything else and all with loud loud music - eurotrash techno. Want to lay your own towel out? That'll cost you. The beaches are small, even more so in Ksamil and they pack people on to them. So wave goodbye to that sought after/exclusive feel - the entire world is sharing it with you.
The Cost of travelling in Albania: So when we read blogs about going, our thought process was 'well if it's that cheap i'll forgo some of the rough edges.' We were sold the dream of $2-3 a drink and $6-8 for meals. Clearly Albania in the last year has realized it is popular, sure the places in the hills/back from the beaches maybe just touch on this, but i didn't come to Albania to go so far off the beaten track to get these prices....i came here because i could get that on the beachfront. Molly and I together spent nearly £2000 on our trip (and our flights were Airmiles). Before you ask, we didn't stay in 5 star hotels, we didn't go out partying with sparkler filled bottles of whatever. We stayed in reasonable hotels off booking.com, we ate well and we drank well - what a holiday is right? For £2000, i'd take your money and go to Croatia, go to Slovenia, or just stay in the chic place you already go to - i'll see you there. These places can handle volume of people, and they have better service, better beaches and nicer people.
The people. We are going to be conflicting as we are going to include this in the good as well. But what we really are getting at is some people are exceptionally rude, unhelpful and frankly make you want to drive straight for airport.
The Good
The north of Albania. Now this is the place to go! I don't understand why more people aren't going here. Everyone we met raved about it. Open lakes, hikes and space without tourists. This is the undiscovered part! Not the Riviera. Look at the beach below in a place called Hamallaj, we stumbled across it as we didn't like Tirana and wanted to get back out away from people. Now that's what a beach should be like AND it had nice places to stay (modern, cheap etc etc) and good restaurants. So my advice......stick to the north!
The People - we really debated crunching down on this in the bad column, however a man on our final day changed our whole opinion. Our cheap rental car had an issue and would barely move and we had 40 minutes to get to the airport. We stopped at a Garage and thanks to google translate, a man there helped us, kept our car with him until the company arrived to pick it up AND drove us to the airport. He even point blank refused any money to take us. It really made us think twice about our previous opinions - but as the point above, he was from the north! But everyone who worked in the hotels were very good and very helpful.
The Scenery - bizarrely the best scenery we saw was actually driving down the roads. While the coastal road is dangerous, boy it is stunning! As for the highway between Ksamil/Gjirokaster......i mean i felt like i was in Narnia. Imagine having that feeling driving down the M6 in the UK! So take the time on the drives (especially as the driving is crazy) and soak up the views.
So......our Conclusion
We did enjoy our trip to Albania, but that's because we like discovering new places and seeing different cultures. Would we recommend it to others? No we wouldn't, i'd say take your money, spend a touch more and go to somewhere better. I could do that holiday, in Spain, for less.
If you are a family, over 40s or a couple looking for a romantic getaway, i wouldn't go here (a friend of mine abandoned his honeymoon to Himare half way through it was that bad). If you're backpacking.....sure. If you're a group looking for cheap place to drink.....sure. But the Maldives of Europe?! NO NO NO. This is closer to tubing in Laos than it is to the Maldives. I'm afraid the people who recommend this place are not the sort of travellers who end up chilling in the Maldives on honeymoon. They are the travellers who have seen a photo of it and compare the edited beach fronts....what a sell.
So there we have it! Comment away! We'll be giving our recommendations for those who do want to go in the coming days.
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