Albania: Tirana, Berat, Gjirokaster and the Riviera

1. Day 1: Arrive in Tirana

   Tirana International Airport to your hotel in Tirana

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Tirana
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza (TIA) at Rinas, about 17 km northwest of the city, in time for the evening meeting: plan to land by about 4 pm (the exact latest arrival is confirmed with your final itinerary). A driver meets you in the arrivals hall for the drive of 25 to 40 minutes to a central hotel. Tirana has changed fast since the 1990s: many grey blocks from the communist years are now painted in bright colours, and cafés fill Blloku, the quarter where only party leaders were once allowed to live. At about 6 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the days ahead: the drives, the walking in the stone towns and what to pack for the coast. Then we walk to Skanderbeg Square as the lights come on and sit down together to a welcome dinner of Albanian dishes, from fërgesë, baked peppers with cheese, to grilled lamb.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Tirana International Airport (TIA)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Evening walk to Skanderbeg Square
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

2. Day 2: Tirana in the morning, Berat by evening

   Tirana to Berat

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Berat
   Day 2 details

   After breakfast your guide walks the group through the centre of Tirana. We start on Skanderbeg Square, the wide stone-paved square below the National History Museum and its mosaic, and step into the small Et'hem Bey Mosque, whose walls are painted with trees, bridges and waterfalls. A few minutes away, Bunk'Art 2 is a Cold War bunker built for the Interior Ministry, now a museum on the police and secret police of the communist years. We finish at the Pyramid, built as a museum to Enver Hoxha and reopened in 2023 with steps you can climb to the top for a view across the city. After a sit-down lunch we drive about two hours south to Berat, where we stay two nights. We arrive in the late afternoon, and in the early evening your guide walks you along the Osum river as the lights come on in the white houses of Mangalem, stacked up the hill below the castle.

   Included

   • Tirana walk with your guide: Skanderbeg Square and the Et'hem Bey Mosque
   • Bunk'Art 2
   • The Pyramid of Tirana
   • Sit-down lunch in Tirana
   • Evening walk along the Osum river in Berat

   Free time: Evening free in Berat

   Activity: About 2.5 hours on foot in Tirana on flat streets, plus the steps up the Pyramid if you want the view.

3. Day 3: Berat: the castle quarter and a winery

   Berat old town and castle, then a winery outside town

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Berat
   Day 3 details

   We climb to Berat's castle, the Kala, after breakfast, while the cobbles are cool and before the coach groups from the coast arrive. This is not an empty ruin: families still live inside the walls, among Byzantine churches and the ruins of the Red Mosque. Your guide takes you into the Onufri Museum, in the Church of the Dormition of St Mary, to see icons by Onufri, the 16th-century painter known for his deep red, and on to the walls for the view down over the Osum river and the Gorica quarter. Berat's old town has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2008, together with Gjirokaster. After a sit-down lunch in the old town, the afternoon is free: rest, or cross the Gorica bridge for the classic view of Mangalem's rows of windows. In the late afternoon we drive a short way out of town to a family winery for a tasting of local wines with cheese and meze.

   Included

   • Berat castle quarter with your guide
   • The Onufri Museum
   • Sit-down lunch in the old town
   • Wine tasting with meze at a family winery near Berat

   Easier option: Ride up to the castle gate by van instead of walking the steep cobbled lane, and skip the walls.

   More active option: Walk up from Mangalem to the castle on the old cobbled path, about 25 minutes uphill, and walk the full circuit of the walls.

   Free time: Afternoon free in Berat

   Activity: About 2 to 3 hours on foot in the morning on steep, uneven cobbles.

   

4. Day 4: South to Gjirokaster

   Berat to Gjirokaster by the Vjosa and Drino valleys

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Gjirokaster
   Day 4 details

   A slower start after breakfast, then we drive south to Gjirokaster, about 170 km and three to three and a half hours of driving, split into two easy halves. For the second half the road follows the Vjosa, a river that runs undammed from the Greek border to the Adriatic and became a national park in 2023, and we stop for a sit-down lunch by the river near Tepelena. From there the road turns up the wide Drino valley, with the Gjerë mountains rising behind Gjirokaster ahead. We arrive in the middle of the afternoon and check in to a hotel close to the old town, where we stay two nights. In the early evening your guide walks you up through the Old Bazaar, where the lanes are paved with polished limestone and the houses are roofed with grey stone slabs, and shows you the way for tomorrow. Dinner tonight is your choice, and the bazaar has plenty of small places to try.

   Included

   • Drive from Berat to Gjirokaster with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch by the Vjosa near Tepelena
   • Evening walk through Gjirokaster's Old Bazaar

   Free time: Evening free in Gjirokaster

   

5. Day 5: Gjirokaster and the Blue Eye

   Gjirokaster old town and castle, then the Blue Eye and back

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast and dinner
   • Stay in Gjirokaster
   Day 5 details

   Gjirokaster climbs the slope in tiers of stone tower houses, with its castle on the ridge above. We go up in the morning, before the midday heat, to walk the long vaulted galleries lined with old artillery and to see the US Air Force jet that landed in Albania in 1957, then look out over the Drino valley from the walls. Below the castle your guide takes you into Skenduli House, an Ottoman-era family house with its guest rooms and hidden spaces, and into the Cold War tunnel cut into the hill beneath the town. Lunch is your choice in the bazaar, and the early afternoon is free. At about 4 pm we drive an hour south over the Muzina pass to the Blue Eye, a karst spring where clear water wells up from a deep blue pool. By late afternoon most day-trippers from Saranda have gone. Back in Gjirokaster we sit down to dinner together, with qifqi, the town's fried rice balls with herbs.

   Included

   • Gjirokaster castle with your guide
   • Skenduli House
   • The Cold War tunnel
   • The Blue Eye spring in the late afternoon
   • Dinner in Gjirokaster

   Easier option: Ride to the castle gate by van and skip the tunnel steps; wait in a café in the bazaar instead.

   More active option: Walk up the steep lanes to Zekate House, a three-storey tower house built in the early 19th century, for the highest view over the old town.

   Free time: Early afternoon free

   Activity: About 3 hours on foot on steep, polished stone lanes that are slippery when wet; the Blue Eye is a short, easy walk.

   

6. Day 6: Butrint, then the Riviera road to Himare

   Gjirokaster to Butrint and Ksamil, then north along the coast to Porto Palermo and Himare

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Himare
   Day 6 details

   We leave Gjirokaster at about 8 am and reach Butrint at about 9:45, after an hour and three quarters over the Muzina pass and down past Saranda to the lagoon. Butrint, on the UNESCO list since 1992, was lived in for more than two thousand years, and a local guide shows you the layers in a morning: a Greek theatre, Roman baths, a 6th-century baptistery, a great basilica, Venetian walls and a hilltop castle with a small museum, all in woodland by the Vivari channel. Lunch is a sit-down meal by the sea at Ksamil. In the afternoon we take the coast road north, past the beaches below Lukovë and Piqeras, and stop at Porto Palermo, where Ali Pasha of Tepelena's small fortress stands on a headland in a sheltered bay. We reach Himare in the late afternoon and stay two nights, with time for a swim before a free evening.

   Included

   • Butrint National Park with a local guide
   • Sit-down lunch at Ksamil
   • Porto Palermo castle

   Free time: Evening free in Himare

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot at Butrint on paths, steps and uneven ground, much of it in shade.

   

7. Day 7: Himare: the old town and a free afternoon

   Himare old town and castle, then the beach

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Himare
   Day 7 details

   A day to slow down. After breakfast the van takes the group a few minutes up the hill to old Himare, a village of stone houses and Orthodox churches inside the walls of its castle, on a ridge above the bay with long views along the coast. Your guide explains how this Greek-speaking corner of Albania kept its own ways through Ottoman and communist rule. The walk back down to the waterfront is about 3 km on a path and quiet road, or the van brings you. The rest of the day is free: swim at Spile beach in town or at Livadhi a short walk north, read in the shade, or sit over a long seafood lunch on the front. If you want more of a walk, join the active option to Gjipe, a beach at the mouth of a canyon reached only on foot or by boat. In the evening the sun sets over the sea; dinner is wherever you like.

   Included

   • Himare old town and castle with your guide

   Optional experiences

   • Seasonal boat trip along the coast to beaches and sea caves (price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Stay at the beach or the hotel all day and skip the old town.

   More active option: Afternoon van ride to the trailhead near Dhermi and a walk of about 30 minutes each way down a stony track to Gjipe beach, with your guide.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free

8. Day 8: Over the Llogara Pass to Apollonia and Tirana

   Himare over the Llogara Pass to Apollonia, then Tirana

   • Drive about 4.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Tirana
   Day 8 details

   Today is the longest drive of the trip, about 235 km and four and a half hours of driving, because no shorter road links the southern Riviera with the capital; we break it into three parts. We leave Himare at about 8:30 am and follow the coast road through Dhermi, then climb to the Llogara Pass, about 1,000 m up in pine forest, for a coffee and the view back down the coast. The road then drops to the Bay of Vlore and runs north to Apollonia, a Greek colony founded around 600 BC on a hill above the plain, which grew rich under Rome. Walk past the columned front of the bouleuterion, the odeon and the old city wall, then visit the medieval monastery of St Mary and its museum. Lunch is a sit-down meal near the site. From there it is about two hours on the motorway to Tirana, arriving in the late afternoon, and we meet for a farewell dinner in the evening.

   Included

   • Coffee stop on the Llogara Pass
   • Apollonia archaeological park with a local guide
   • The monastery of St Mary and its museum
   • Sit-down lunch near Apollonia
   • Farewell dinner in Tirana

   Easier option: At Apollonia, stay on the lower paths by the monastery and the bouleuterion and skip the walk up to the city wall.

   Activity: About 1.5 hours on foot at Apollonia on grass and gravel paths with some slopes.

9. Day 9: Tirana and home

   Tirana to Tirana International Airport

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast
   Day 9 details

   Breakfast, then a free morning. If your flight leaves in the afternoon, ride the Dajti Express cable car up Mount Dajti for the view over the city and the plain towards the sea, walk round the lake in the Grand Park, or visit the House of Leaves, the museum of the secret police's surveillance in a former Sigurimi building. Your guide helps you plan the morning and checks your flight. The airport transfer is included at a time that suits your flight: Tirana International Airport at Rinas is about 17 km from the centre, 25 to 40 minutes depending on traffic, and you should be there two hours before departure. Check-out is usually late morning, and the hotel can keep your luggage. If you would like more time in Albania, we can add nights in Tirana before or after the trip, or a day in Kruja, with its castle and old bazaar, about an hour north of the city.

   Included

   • Drop-off at Tirana International Airport (TIA)

   Optional experiences

   • Dajti Express cable car
   • House of Leaves museum

   Free time: Morning free

   Activity: Any flight time works; for the cable car or a museum, book a flight leaving after about 2 pm.

Wildlife and weather: May, June, September and October bring warm days and a sea warm enough to swim in from about late May. July and August are very hot inland and the Riviera and the Blue Eye are crowded, so the dated departures avoid them.

• Tirana1 night
• Berat2 nights
• Gjirokaster2 nights
• Himare2 nights
• Tirana1 night