After the physically and intellectually demanding start to our time in Albania, our last two stops were all about relaxing. From Tirana we hopped on a bus to Berat. I think I’ve mentioned a few times now that public transportation got a lot more…interesting once we left the EU.

As we traveled south through the Balkans we said goodbye to bullet trains, online schedules and ticket machines and hello to rickety buses and hand written tickets. Tirana, despite being the nation’s capital, doesn’t have a bus station – just a giant parking lot full of mismatched buses and vans. We got the schedule from our hostel and wandered around until we found the driver yelling “Berat!”. It looked like total chaos but, as we learned in Southeast Asia, sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

The Town of a Thousand Windows

We made it safely to Berat, a charming little city nicknamed ‘the town of a thousand windows’ for its Ottoman houses perched on a hill above a river. The pace of life is slow in Berat, which was perfect for this part of our trip. We spent our few days there wandering medieval streets, eating delicious food and relaxing at our lovely guesthouse.

There isn’t a lot to ‘do’ in Berat. The only real sightseeing we did there was a hike up to the old fortress above town. Within this walled castle are a mix of crumbling ruins and still-occupied homes and businesses.

I loved meandering through the remains of ancient buildings but the views alone make it worth a visit.

A couple things I don’t think I’ve mentioned about Albania in previous posts: it’s amazingly cheap and the food is awesome. In Berat we took full advantage of this. We enjoyed long, leisurely meals, with plenty of wine, every evening. There aren’t a ton of restaurants in Berat but the ones we tried had great food, which was often served at an outdoor table with a lovely view.

When we were there in mid-September it was still very hot during the day so the city really came alive at dusk. There is a huge walking street in the center of town, lined with little shops and cafe-bars.

Every night when the sun went down it seemed like the whole town came out and gathered on this street. We would see young people meeting for drinks, kids running around with their friends and groups of old men getting together to play chess.

I loved the festive atmosphere and the sense of community that persists despite the influx of tourists in recent years.

Bound for the Beach

Fall was approaching and we were eager to get to Greece before the warm days of summer came to an end. BUT we had heard a lot about Albania’s beautiful beaches. It seemed like a shame to spend so much time in this little country without visiting one. So before crossing the border we made one more quick stop in Ksamil.

We chose Ksamil because it was on our route south and it was supposed to be quieter and less touristy than the nearby beach town of Sarande. We had to take a bus to Sarande first and catch a taxi from there. The twenty minutes we spent in the larger city reaffirmed out decision no to stay there. It was one of the densest places we saw in our travels; hotel and apartment towers were piled on top of each other, jostling for position near the beach.

Ksamil, on the other hand, had a more laid back vibe. However, in some ways it reminded me of Bali. The beautiful beaches of this little town have clearly been ‘discovered’ and a wave of construction has ensued. The area where our guesthouse was located didn’t have paved (or even particularly level) roads but that hadn’t stopped numerous hotels from popping up.

Apparently in Albania if you try to build without the proper permits the government comes around and knocks down one of your structure’s support beams. In Ksamil we saw quite a few partially built guesthouses that had been collapsed in this way.

We spent our one full day in Ksamil at the beach (of course) and we had a lovely time. It was windy that day but still warm enough to enjoy some time in the sun.

I’m glad we got a glimpse of the Albanian riviera and I’d love to go back some day and spend more time on the coast. However, we ended up being glad we didn’t stay longer in Ksamil on this trip. We were about to fall completely in love with Greece and we’d be glad for every day we got there.