Albania

Tirana was one of Europe’s most isolated cities until 1990 — a communist state sealed from the outside world for 45 years, with 750,000 concrete bunkers built across the country (one for every four people). Skanderbeg Square, the National History Museum, and the colourful painted apartment blocks that Edi Rama (the current Prime Minister) painted as mayor. The Blloku district for the evening — formerly reserved for the communist elite, now Tirana’s cafe and bar quarter.

💡 The National History Museum mosaic facade (1981) shows Albanian history in a socialist realist montage — the largest mosaic in the Balkans and an inadvertently excellent work of art. The museum inside covers Albania from Illyrian antiquity through the communist period with surprising candour.

Bunk’Art 1: a 5-storey nuclear bunker built for Enver Hoxha beneath Mount Dajti, converted to a museum of Albanian communist history and Cold War paranoia (1,000 rooms, designed to survive an atomic attack, now entirely surreal). Bunk’Art 2: a smaller central Tirana bunker covering the history of the interior ministry and the Sigurimi (secret police).

💡 The Albanian communist era (1944–1990) under Enver Hoxha was one of Europe’s most extreme — the country was simultaneously anti-Soviet, anti-Chinese and anti-Western. The 750,000 bunkers (still visible everywhere in the landscape) were built in the 1970s–80s at enormous national expense against an attack that never came.

2h from Tirana. Berat is UNESCO World Heritage Site — a 13th-century Ottoman city with whitewashed houses stacked on a hillside, each with large windows (hence the name), overlooking the Osum River gorge below. The Byzantine church of the Holy Trinity above the castle.

💡 The Berat Castle (Kalaja) is still inhabited — a living neighbourhood of 200 people within the medieval walls. The 13th-century churches inside (St Mary, the Dormition of St Mary, the Evangelista) retain fragments of extraordinary fresco painting.

3h from Berat. The Albanian Riviera — 120km of coastline between Vlore and Saranda — was entirely closed to foreigners until 1990 and is still largely undeveloped. The beaches at Drymades, Gjipe (accessible only by boat or a steep 45-min hike) and Borsh are among the finest and least-visited in the Mediterranean.

💡 Gjipe beach is accessible via a 45-minute hike down a limestone canyon from the road above, or by boat from Himara. It has no facilities, no umbrellas and no entry fee. In June and September it is almost entirely empty.

Himara — a former Greek minority village on a cliff above the sea, with a medieval castle and good fresh seafood — is the best base on the southern Riviera. The Blue Eye (Syri i Kaltert): a freshwater spring of extraordinary blue colour bubbling from underground at 6m depth, surrounded by beech forest 30km inland from Saranda.

💡 The Blue Eye spring is at 18.5°C year-round — so cold it is painful to swim in after more than 30 seconds. The colour comes from the depth and purity of the water. The site is a natural park; entry is free.

1h30 from Saranda. Gjirokaster is UNESCO World Heritage Site — a steep hillside of grey slate-roofed Ottoman mansions and the largest castle in Albania, with captured American aircraft and a bronze bust of Enver Hoxha stored inside. Ismail Kadare (Albania’s greatest novelist) was born here.

💡 Gjirokaster’s castle was built in the 4th century, expanded by Ali Pasha of Ioannina and later used by Enver Hoxha as a prison. Inside: a captured 1957 USAF Lockheed T-33 aircraft, apparently shot down in Albanian airspace (contested), and an astonishing view over the stone city.

1h from Gjirokaster. Butrint (UNESCO World Heritage Site) is the most important archaeological site in Albania — a peninsula with layers of Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian occupation from the 8th century BCE to the 19th century CE, surrounded by a lagoon and mature forest. Fly back from Tirana or cross to Corfu (45-min ferry from Saranda).

💡 Butrint is one of the rare sites where you can walk from a Greek theatre (3rd century BCE) through a Roman forum and basilica, a 6th-century Byzantine baptistery (the finest mosaic floor in Albania), Venetian towers and a 19th-century Venetian castle in a single 2h visit.