Another week has passed in Albania! Since Berat, we’ve been to four different towns that are all along the coast of southern Albania. As we make our way back inland and to Gjirokastra, I want to make sure I write about our time on the coast before I forget any of the beautiful details.

During the bus ride from Berat to Vlorë, as I was writing the last blog post, Sam is texting with the vice mayor of Vlorë, Klevis, whose contact information he got from Miranda. Miranda, Sam’s sister, has a coworker whose brother is the vice mayor of Vlorë. The odds that a close coworker friend of Miranda’s happens to have a brother who is vice mayor of a small town in Albania that Sam and I were planning on going to? Very slim. The odds he wants to spend time with us and host us as his guests? Even slimmer. But as we continue to learn in Albania: Albanians are unbelievably kind and hospitable. Miranda said he wanted to meet us for a meal, so Sam reached out to him to plan when we would meet up. Klevis had other ideas. “Where are you staying?” Klevis asks Sam over What’s App. Sam tells him the name of our hostel. “Cancel it.” Klive writes. “You will stay as my guest at Regina City Hotel.” After much back and forth telling him it was too generous, we decided it was, at this point, rude of us to reject his kind offer. A couple hours later, we show up at this four-star hotel on the beach of Vlorë, sweaty from our long walk from the bus station and out of place with our huge backpacking backpacks. This hotel is equipped with a rooftop pool and bar, free breakfast, a spa, and my personal favorite, fluffy white bathrobes. There’s nothing like staying in a fancy hotel free of charge, especially when you’ve been accustomed to hostel living. The next day, our only full day in Vlorë, was our day with the vice mayor. We met him at a fancy restaurant called Joni’s that was a block away from our hotel. He ordered all the food for us and we happily accepted. “Red wine or white wine?” he asked us, assuming that of course we would want wine with our lunch. So there we sat, for hours on end, drinking red wine, getting served endless platers of the best and freshest seafood, talking about the world and politics, and asking questions about Albania and Vlorë. At the end of the meal, Klevis asked us if we were hungry still. Sam and I adamantly shook us heads no, both stuffed after so much food. Klevis waved over the waiter to ask for… dessert. Of course we couldn’t refuse it. He insisted on paying for the whole meal, despite us pleading to contribute. Klevis, after speaking to one of the owners in Albanian, turns to Sam and I and tells us to come here for dinner to try to meat. “It’s my treat,” Klevis says plainly as if he hasn’t already put us up in a fancy hotel and taken us out for a meal that cost about four times our daily budget, all while just meeting us three hours ago. To appease him, we nod and thank him. In private we agree that obviously this is too generous and we will not be coming back for dinner and instead stop by the restaurant later to say we’re too full to eat (and proceed to go out to a restaurant that is actually in our price range). After lunch, Klevis takes us to yet another fancy place where he knows the owner. This rooftop bar looks like it belongs in New York City. We each order an espresso and a water, and look out on the stunning sea while we continue our conversation. Unfortunately Klevis has to go to a meeting in Tirana despite the fact that it’s a Saturday night, so we have to part ways. As we’re hugging him goodbye, he tells us that his driver will bring us to Himare, the town we travel to the next day, so that we don’t have to take the bus. We refuse this (and have to politely refuse again over What’s App) and thank him for his generosity, telling him to let us know when he is in New York City next. While we may not be able to afford putting him up in a four star hotel in New York, we will be sure to share our home with him as he did so warmly with us and make him feel as welcome and cared for as he did for us. Our time with Klevis was one of the highlights of our trip so far - it is so special being able to connect with locals on a deep level and learn so much about a place. Klive was so eager to tell us about Albania and Vlorë and his family business. He taught us things about Albania we could never read online or learn in a museum. To be able to share ideas, stories, and dreams with someone who lives across the world is to make the world a smaller and more compassionate place.

Vlorë had other highlights, including our daily morning runs along the beach promenade, our favorite restaurant, Ya Mas, which served incredible Greek food, our cold plunges in the sea, and, as always, our time playing cards against each other in cafes. We spent two nights in Vlorë, which we both think was the perfect amount of time there. It’s a bougie beach front getaway for wealthy Albanians. It doesn’t have a whole lot to do in the off season but it is very beautiful.

We got on another bus, moving further south down the coast to Himare. Himare was one of the favorite towns of the travel blogger, The Holistic Backpacker, who writes about Albania, but her experience was in the summertime. Now, in the off-season, a majority of restaurants and stores were closed. We could tell many of the locals were just starting to come out of a sort of hibernation to build and prepare for the summer months. The Greek restaurant we went to, To Steki sti Gonia, had just opened up for the season the day before we arrived. All over town people were cleaning up their hotels and reopening their restaurants. It was cool to see a town slowly reopening and, honestly, Sam and I probably needed a few days of slower living, so I didn’t mind Himare being a little sleepy. I would like to visit it in the summer months because it is absolutely stunning. The Albanian coast is special for many reasons, but one is that it is right across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. It’s similar to Italy, but it doesn’t have the crowds that Italy has in the summertime. Klevis told us that the Italians actually come across to Albania in the summertime to escape their tourists and enjoy the beauty of a quieter place. Other than relaxing at our beautiful hostel, Sam and I kayaked in the Adriatic Sea, swam, hiked up to Himare Castle, ran and walked along the three beaches in Himare, and, of course, played cards. A highlight of our time in Himare was the hostel we stayed at, Himare Hostel, and the wonderful people that worked and stayed there. There was one volunteer, Heidi, from Australia, who was staying there for a few weeks and helping out the owners, an older couple who spoke only Greek and Albanian. While we couldn’t communicate with words with the hostel owners, there is so much kindness and love to be shared without words. By the end of our stay, the hostel owner was blowing kisses to Sam and I as she walked by. We also met Mischi, a Swiss woman, while staying at Himare Hostel. Mischi, Heidi, Sam, and I had fun at nights playing cards and sharing stories about life, traveling, and home. Luckily, Mischi was also going to Sarande, our next destination, so we got to spend even more time with her. An honorable mention at Himare Hostel has to be the unlimited supply of freshly squeezed orange juice. The hostel had multiple orange trees from which we were allowed to pick from and juice them with the electric juicer in the hostel kitchen. I will dream about this orange juice for years to come I am certain.

Next stop, and the town we are leaving now, is Sarande. As I have previously mentioned about the Albanian bus system, it is not really a “system” and more of a “if you know you know” type of thing. Buses are owned privately and there’s no website that tells you bus times. There’s even very few bus stops: you just kind of show up at a spot and hope to wave a bus down when it comes by. Since the hostel owners weren’t anywhere to be found when we were leaving Himare, we had to figure out the bus to Sarande for ourselves. Mischi, our Swiss friend, had told us a few days ago how she figured out the bus to a nearby town: she asked a man in the street about the bus schedule and he directed her to a restaurant and told her to ask the woman who owns that restaurant. No, this woman had no formal association with the bus drivers, nor was her restaurant even close to the bus stop, but yes she could tell you every bus that went through Himare and where it was going and what time it would be driving through town. Although I was curious to go meet this magical bus genius, I was happy to just get the Sarande bus schedule from Mischi. After a windy bus ride through the mountains, we arrive in the livelier beach city of Sarande. We spend the next two days that we have staying in Hasta la Vista Hostel in Sarande visiting surrounding sites. On the first day we rented a moped (!) and made our way to the iconic Blue Eye. The Blue Eye is a natural spring that is also an initial water source. Everyone made it sound like it was a must visit - we were thrilled to find this to be true. Sam and I were mesmerized by the natural phenomenon, staring at its beauty and strength for a while. The cool thing about it creates a fast moving river - there’s no other water source supplying this river other than the water being pushed up from more than fifty meters under the floor. On our way back to Sarande on our moped we stopped at a restaurant called Sotiri on the side of the road. Albanian food has continued to blow Sam and I away. Even the most random of places have amazing food. With food being so cheap, we have eaten out a lot in Albania. With the exception of one restaurant, every restaurant we’ve eaten at in Albania has been notably phenomenal. Neither of us had heard anything about the food being so good in Albania but it makes sense. Firstly, the agriculture here is extremely diverse - when we hiked with a guide back in Berat, he kept pointing to different plants. I was astonished about how much variety they could grow right here in Albania. Sam and my second theory for the amazing food is its recent closed off borders. Since modern Albania has only had open borders since 1992, they had to make do with what they grow here in Albania. The third theory, and one we heard from Klevis, is that Greece and Italy being so close has had a positive influence on Albanian cuisine. Chefs go to Italy for their training. With Greece so close, a lot of the Albanian cuisine mirrors what you’d find in Greece like skewers and tzatziki. Sotiri, as all our Albanian meals, was incredible. We got back on the road with full hearts and full stomachs. That night when we returned to Sarande we met up with Mischi to watch the sunset over the water at Limani along the main promenade in Sarande. After many hours of stimulating and interesting conversation, we said our goodbyes and Sam and I hit the hay for an early night.

The next morning (Saturday 3/15), bright and early, we got up to catch the bus to Butrint and Ksamil. The first stop, Butrint, is a UNESCO site and a national park. Butrint, like Blue Eye, was a popular destination that was well worth the hype. Butrint is an archeological site located on the water that has been a Greek colony, a Roman city, and a bishopric. As you can see from the pictures below, the ruins are quite impressive. After about two hours in Butrint, we hopped back on the bus to head to the small beach town of Ksamil. We immediately made our way down to the beach and into the crystal clear aqua-colored water. The water was perfectly cold and salty and so very refreshing. Mischi came to meet us in Ksamil, for our last day together before she took the ferry to Corfu. We laid on the beach after a long swim and enjoyed the sun and some conversation. The three of us then searched all over the small town for a bite to eat. Ksamil, like Himare, is such a small beach town that it clearly shuts down during the off season. There were a lot of people fixing up their hotels and restaurants and streets, but not a lot of options of where to eat. We were directed by a kind man on where to find the one open restaurant in town. As always the food was amazing, and the view, overlooking the water, was beautiful. This is where Mischi parted ways from Sam and I to head to Corfu. After our goodbyes, Sam and I went back to Sarande on the bus and spent our last night in Sarande walking around parts we hadn’t seen yet of the town and appreciating the waterfront before we headed inland.

As I reflect on the last week on the coast and look forward to Gjirokastra and all the places after, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this trip and this beautiful world. Thank you for reading! Until next time xoxo