-
I’m writing this from the comfort of the VIP lounge at Tirana airport which was fairly busy but went quiet after the Milan and Barcelona flights boarded at around 7pm. Finally managed to use one of my Dragonpass credits after I resolved my spat with them (will post details seperately). The lounge is very beige/brown and windowless but a nice place to be with some of the best food I’ve seen in a non-airline affiliated lounge. Great Albanian wine, lovely apple cake and muffins. Random waffles below.
This trip was an ad-hoc unplanned excursion because I’d spotted that Ryanair had return flights from around £50 from MAN. I’d read this thread on Tirana https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/tirana-much-to-see-do/ but had no real preconceptions or plans. Random musings follow.
I would suggest forgetting about even looking for an ATM with the associated charges. Bring GBP or preferably EUR as there are 2 change counters in the baggage area, and one in the arrivals, all giving very good rates. I just swapped £80 for LEK. Whilst shopping in Tirnana and Berat everywhere was happy with LEK/Euro, virtually everywhere took cards but preferred cash, but the only place that card was actually refused was a Conad supermarket, out came the calculator and my 20 euro note was converted and the change handed back in LEK.
I’d planned to take the bus but they only run every hour, so hopped in a a taxi at the rank to the Marriott and 30 mins later we arrived. Strangely the driver took Lek from me (I handed over 3000 for the 2200 Lek fare) and offered change in either Euro or USD.
Marriot check in was quick after the clown in front me of on a company credit card argued the toss for 10 mins over handing a card to the receptionist for the usual security deposit and local city tax.
I’d booked my usual basic king on points, and had cancelled and rebooked 4 times bringing the rate for 5-4-4 from 86k to 66.5k points which equated to 1.1p/point based on the cash rate. Excellent value for Marriott these days. I could have just booked 4 nights with a 12pm late checkout but my flight wasn’t until 21.15 so thought it was better to just walk away at 5pm and leave the room empty without checking out so that I can get the 5 nights credited towards my platinum status.
Monday – Free walking tour at 10am from the Opera House coverered pretty much everything you need to know about Albania and was very impressed with Aurora’s presentation even though she was dying with the flu, poor thing.
Tuesday, off to Ohrid. Most of the info you’ll read on the net about getting the bus from Tirana is out of date. There’s a new bus station called TEG – Tirana Eastern Gateway which is below a new shopping centre of the same name. You can get the bus from the centre (30-40 mins for 40 Lek) or a taxi (for approx 900 Lek). The Vrapon Taxi app is excellent. You order like Uber and then pay cash to the driver. There’s no Uber or Bolt in Albania. When the driver drops you off at TEG, you just take the escalator down to the bus station and walk along to where the Ohrid bus is waiting. I booked out and return via the Flixbus website even though neither bus was run by them.
Bus journey takes about 3 hours from TEG (not 4 as is reported elsewhere) with a 5-10 min stretch your legs break. The border crossing is handled very well, driver collected all passports, handed them to both sets of border guards and then off we went. Disappointingly Albania is all electronic so no passport stamps but North Macedonia does still stamp on arrival but not departure.
Ohrid’s new bus station is as far away from the lake as it can be, so it’s a 30 min walk or tax ride to the lake shore. Once you’re there there’s a nice 7km trail out to various monasteries, churches and the castle and back to the centre. It’s really pretty but I guess busy during the summer season. One thing to note is that the shops seem not to accept any currency apart from their own, or credit cards, so couldn’t buy small souveniers which was disappointing. If you have euro coins bring them with as some of the vendors will accept those.
Back to the bus station, and it appears that you cannot board the bus unless you first “check in” which means paying a departure tax of approx 68p which can be done by credit card. Looks like they expect for the new bsu station to be paid by these incremental charges over the next 20-30 years! Weirdly the bus driver stopped at his company office 1 mile into town, took all our passports inside for some reason and then handed them back. Then took them off us at the border for them to be checked as before.
Day 3 was a group trip booked via Expedia with a local company for a day out to Berat (there’s options for Durres as well but that trip is a long day). The guy was Whatsapp mad, sending us info, itinerary, links to places to walk to and eat and also so that we could see the van location live so we could see when it was arriving for pickup. I’ve not been a fan of WA up until this year but it’s becoming an essential travel companion in a lot of countries, for example all the South African guest houses used it to communicate pre arrival.
Berat was very picturesque, the castle was interesting and it was a very informative day out. If I’d planned things better I might have stayed there, or Durres, then gone 150 miles south and got the ferry across to Corfu and flown home from there after spending a week in Corfu. Ah well, piss poor planning on my part.
Whoever said there’s no supermarkets or anywhere to buy water – not sure where you were but they’re on every corner. There’s at least 6 supermarkets within 5 mins of the Marriott, inc Spar, Conad, Aldi and local brands. The taxi took 30 mins one way, the bus took 35 mins return so unless there’s nasty traffic issues the days of 1 hour plus trips are history
The Marriott was a little odd – 1st day housekeeping made up the room in terms of bathroom, taking dirty cups away etc but forgot to make the bed. They were very good about putting sheets of paper warning about delays due to demonstrations and celebrations under your door each day. The room overlooked the pitch at the stadium so if there was a match on you’d be fine, but the noise would be incredible. Somewhere outside there was intermittent blasting music most nights until after 11pm and the room (on the 15th floor) shook with the volume. But it was intermittent which was wierd. Can’t comment about breakfast as I’m not paying 25 euro when I only eat toast and coffee, maybe next year when I’m plat.
If you’re looking to stay at the Intercontinental when it finally opens then that’s the only place you’d not be able to see the ugle monstrosity. They’ve covered it in gold and it can be seen from just about everywhere in the city as it’s so tall.
Final day turned out to be independence day in Albania. Well from 8am the drumming started for the various parts of the procession and it didn’t finish until after 2pm. Constant drumming and wierdly the revving of motorcycle engines all through it. I felt a bit bad health wise today so just tried to ignore it until it was time for the bus back to the airport. Bus payment was odd, we pulled away on time, just board the coach and nobody said anything about tickets. Then 5 mins away from arriving at the airport a guy wearing a lanyard gets up and collects the fare – 400 LEK or 4 euro. If you paid by card you got a receipt, if you paid cash it just went in his pocket… Hmmmm!
Tirana airport is strange. new boarding pass gates, new CT scanners, (but the belts were broken so the trays kept getting stuck and the only guy who could fix them was the scanner operator so that slowed things down) then I got pulled out of the All Passports queue and pushed to the egates because I had a UK passport.
Once through security you’re forced to walk through the food court, then downstairs, then through duty free as usual, then you have to walk back the entire length of the terminal, and climb the stairs back up to the VIP lounge.
One last note was that I found the food in Albania pretty awful compared to anywhere I’ve ever been. Almost all was served cold/lukewarm at best, 3 times I got cold and undercooked chips, even the KFC, poor quality lamb and chicken, and the Turkish & Greek restaurants I ate in were no exception.
Thanks for writing. Sounds similar to my experience, down to all the gritty details… except that you got unlucky with the food. I went to eateries which seemed busy with local residents and wasn’t disappointed.
The bus between Ohrid and the East Bus Station should be bang on 3 hours – having to traverse the city to the previous bus station by the Ring Shopping Centre took 4 hours, not helped by my bus driver being the least aggressive person in the Balkans always slowing to let cars (and other buses!) overtake…
My mistake with cash was exchanging too much euros to leke as I thought I could dump the rest on my hotel (the HGI). They scammed me by converting the quoted rate in euro at 1 to 110 instead of the true rate at the time of 103, but I had no time left to go back to the city centre and change it back to euros.
Thanks both, Tirana remains on my ‘sometime’ list to visit
Thanks very much, enjoyed the read. This is not a region I’ve given much thought to but I’ll have to add it to my ever growing list.
@davefl – As always, thank you for the time to post a detailed and honest trip report, that I am sure will be of interest to someone that has Albania, as a destination to visit on their radar.
@Man of Kent Thanks to covid and Boris’s red light/green light shenanigans I’ve been lucky enough to visit Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia over the past few years. Just got Kosovo and Serbia to complete the Balkan set.
All are wonderful in their own ways, but I think Bosnia and Sarajevo were the most surprising and delightful although the driving was off the charts insane.
@davefl – thank you for taking the trouble to write up your very interesting sounding trip. All very useful.
Having visited Bulgaria (with day trip to Skopje and Matka Canyon) and Romania plus Serbia (twice) in the last couple of years, I am very smitten with that part of the world – such incredible history, so many extraordinary tourist sites – pre-historic, Greek and Roman onwards, wonderful people, delicious food. Amazing value and just so wonderfully uncrowded vs Western Europe. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia beckon next year.
PS @davefl – rather concerned re your culinary experiences in Tirana; am taking urgent advice!
Cheers everyone for your comments, please forgive the typos, my eyes are terrible and I proofread it three times before posting but they creep in.
@JDP you’ll have a ball. I didn’t really mention the history and the sights but wandering around the 200 BCE Greek theatre in Ohrid just before sunset was cool. Also Plaoshnik ruins and the enormous St Klmenent university buildings next to it that are still only a shell after 14 years of construction. There’s a guy there that comes up to you, calls himself a philosopher and offers to explain the ruins for a tip.
Ther are “bunkers” to visit in Tirana, Bunkart 1 in the centre and Bunkart 2 near the cable car station which is a nice couple of hours up the mountain. Plenty of hiking trails in the national park up there together with ziplining etc. Sunset from the mountain is great. They have the Swiss Teleferik cars and apparently the longest continuous run in the Balkans. Tirana itself is very new, shiny, lots of inward foreign investment in building skyscrapers. Both the Marriott and the Intercontinental are gauche or eye catching depending on your perspective but unlike the Uk and our mostly boring new buildings (Manchester architecture is appalling) they really take a chance with their new ones and they’re all striking in one way or another.
Food – I guess I was just unlucky and I’m not a foodie by any stretch, but I love Turkish/Greek/Lebanese food and was generally disappointed. The lovely traditional restaurant in Berat with a 4.8 on Google served up Greek slow cooked lamb and potatoes which was just hacked up leg bone and part cooked potatoes and was almost fridge temperature when it arrived. At least the house wine was good. And how the heck can a KFC serve up part cooked tepid chips, when their chicken is perfectly well done.
Out of the countries you mention Montenegro will be crowded if you’re in Kotor/Tivat etc, but away from there it’ll be wonderful (apart from the insane driving on the mountain roads just like Bosnia). Just count how many people drive towards you on your side of the road on blind bends. I was soaked in sweat from all the near misses every time I got behind the wheel. In Bosnia I even saw on roads that were 3 lanes in each direction, cars cross the oncoming traffic, drive up the shoulder on the wrong side and then swerve back across the three lanes. to rejoin the correct side. But crossing from Croatia into Bosnia and driving the mountain road to Sarajevo was just one of the most beautiful runs I’ve done.
The history of the region is so complex, and of the modern country borders there’s much hatred and loathing still, it’s very much bubbling under the surface with Albanians/Kosovo/Serbs and Croatians mixed in each territory. Bosnia is a real clusterfuck – “Bosnia’s central government is headed by a tripartite presidency, with one representative of each of the three major ethnic constituencies. The chairmanship of the presidency rotates among the three presidency members every eight months” – I mean…. really 🙂
Make sure you visit Mostar and listen to the tour guide’s war stories. They’re horrific.
And if you like fast food, (which I’m sure isn’t your thing) Cevapi or Cevapcici is heaven. I make my own at home now, even bought a Cevapcici press.
Thanks, @davefl, this is really interesting. What was the weather like?
Bettany Hughes “Treasures of the World” series has an episode on Albania if anyone wants to learn more about its ancient history and see some gorgeous scenery.
In Athens last month I finally got my head around the difference between Macedonia and North Macedonia, and the Greeks’ strong feelings about the use of the name!
Thanks, @davefl, this is really interesting. What was the weather like?
Cloudless blue skies. 12-15C in the day but chilly at night. Made a nice change seeing actual daylight between 8am and 4pm.
Bettany Hughes “Treasures of the World” series has an episode on Albania if anyone wants to learn more about its ancient history and see some gorgeous scenery.
In Athens last month I finally got my head around the difference between Macedonia and North Macedonia, and the Greeks’ strong feelings about the use of the name!
You should hear the Armenia/Turkey opinion, or Armenia/Azerbaijan, or Albania/all neighbors 🙂
One interesting thing I heard from all the tour guides was not only the fact that post communism there is total religeous freedom in Albania but they also have 100% tolerance of any religion, no animosity at all. That was repeated several times. Wish we had the same on our small island.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
