Every good Albania trip starts with the right route.

Tirana & Culture Escape

Tirana takes most people by surprise. What looks like a post-communist capital catching up turns out to be a city that has been building something genuinely its own for thirty years. Three or four days here, plus a day trip to Skanderbeg's fortress at Kruja, gives you the full picture.

• Bunk'Art 2, inside a Cold War bunker, one of the best war history museums in Europe
• Blloku district, where the Communist Party elite used to live, now Tirana's best nightlife
• Skanderbeg Square and the Et'hem Bej Mosque, the historic centre on foot
• Kruja: the fortress, the Skanderbeg Museum, the centuries-old covered bazaar

Coastal & Villas Long Weekend

Gjiri i Lalzit is an hour from Tirana on a good road. Our villas there have heated pools, gardens, and direct access to a quiet bay. This is the route for three days of genuinely doing nothing and eating extremely well. Add a half-day wine tour at Cape of Rodon if you want something to do on the second afternoon. Or do not add it.

• Private villa with heated pool at Gjiri i Lalzit, one hour from Tirana
• Lalzit Bay, quiet, clean, backed by pine hills
• Optional: Cape of Rodon ruins and Duka Winery afternoon (one of the best in Albania)
• Optional extension: Dhërmi or Himarë for a night on the Riviera

Beach Escape

The Albanian Riviera is still one of the few places in the Mediterranean that feels unfinished in the right way. Dhërmi and Himarë have water you expect from Greece but without the crowds or the prices. Days here have a simple rhythm: swim in the morning, long lunch, swim again, dinner with a view.

• Dhërmi and Himarë, crystal Ionian water, limestone cliffs, no crowds
• Private boat to Gjipe Beach, reachable only by sea
• Long lunches on the waterfront with fresh seafood and cold local wine
• The drive down from the mountain, pine forest opening to sea below

The Classic Albania Trip

This is the route that gives you everything without spreading it too thin. Tirana first, to get your bearings. Then south to Berat, the city that appears in every photograph of Albania. Then west to the coast. Three or four nights in Dhërmi to swim, eat, and do nothing at a pace that is harder to find elsewhere in Europe right now.

• Berat's Ottoman houses stacked up two hillsides, castle inhabited since the 4th century BC
• The Onufri Museum inside Berat's castle walls, Byzantine icons that should not exist in a building this size
• Tirana's painted streets, Bunk'Art 2, and the best coffee culture in the Balkans
• Three to four nights on the Riviera with the Albanian Alps behind you

Adventure Albania

The Koman Lake ferry is 2.5 hours through a drowned canyon and worth the early start to catch the crossing. Valbona is at the end of the road in every sense. The hike over the pass to Theth is sixteen kilometres that most people describe as one of the best days of their lives. Guesthouses in both villages are run by the same families that have always been there.

• The Berisha Ferry through the Drini Canyon, one of the great boat journeys in Europe
• Valbona to Theth: 16km over an alpine pass, one of the best hikes on the continent
• Mountain guesthouses with home-cooked dinners and no roads out
• Shkodër and Rozafa Castle on the way back south