Monday, August 11th – Tuesday, August 19th, 2025
World Tour Days: 283 – 291
Arrival In Shkodër
Our travel day was scheduled to be a 4 hour taxi from Lake Ohrid to Shkodër. As it turns out the Balkans have been discovered, but the infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the number of tourists. The 4 hour drive ended up being 9 hours with traffic. We were not prepared with snacks in the car so that was pretty brutal. Our driver did know of a nice seafood restaurant that was halfway, so that was a nice break. We got calamari and tuna, some of the best seafood we’ve had on our trip. We did not end up doing much after arrival besides eat a quick meal and go to bed. Our hostel was a large house that gave me Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events vibes as it was full of many knick knacks, hallways, passages, large staircases, and mirrors.
Nick and I had two days for doing things in Shkodër before heading off on our week of hiking in the mountains. On the first day we walked to Rozafa castle and walked around everywhere we had access. It is well maintained and covers a large area so we spent a good amount of time there. As far as castles go it was one of our favorites. There were many deep holes that were not covered up so we had to watch our step. It seemed like they had just finished up a music festival there, too, and I’m sure it was a cool spot for it. There were wonderful views of the town and the valley from up there.
The last day in town we rented bicycles and biked to two small towns on the nearby lake. We could’ve squeezed this in the day before, but decided not to due to the heat wave. We were unlucky to be in the area during an extreme 2-day heat wave where the afternoons ended up being 41C. The bike ride itself would’ve been really nice if the bike path was not fully under construction. The majority of the road and bike path were gravel and had construction trucks working, so it’ll probably be very nice next year, but for now is difficult to pedal on.
During our bike ride along the lake there was a large group of horses that passed by, including a small baby, and there were also some geese who crossed the road in town. It was like a Snow White bike ride, all the animals came! The views were okay, but smoke from nearby wildfires nearly blocked out the mountains on the horizon completely. The farthest we biked was a town called Zogaj, but the restaurant we wanted to eat at there was not open until later. We were afraid of hanging out for too long as we knew the afternoon would continue getting hotter so we turned our bikes back around and went to Shiroka for lunch instead.
In Shiroka there were many small restaurants all along the waterfront. It was the one section where the bike path and road were actually fully intact, which was wonderful. We ate at the aptly named Bar Restaurant Shkodra Lake where Nick got a seafood risotto and I got a seafood pasta. After all that biking in the heat everything tasted amazing. Of course it wouldn’t be a bike ride without some gelato afterwards as well. In total Nick thinks we biked around 20km, but I swear it was more (just by vibes alone, but I’m not a big fan of biking so hard to know who was right). A highlight for Nick was the animals for sure, including two dogs who were smitten with him.
Theth
Getting to Theth is incredibly easy from Shkodër. All we did was let our hostel know the night before and we bought tickets directly from them for the shuttle to Theth and the transport to return from Valbonë. In the morning our hostel let us know the shuttle was there and we rode that with a few other people through a windy mountain road for about 2 hours. The views of the mountains were spectacular and I was thrilled that the forest fires weren’t nearby. It meant we could hike and see the mountains. On the way to Theth we stopped at a small cafe for the driver to have a break. The cafe had a small puppy that I thought looked like a loaf of bread. Our entire bus was in love with her.
Theth is a small town that seems to be 99% guesthouses or restaurants. It is a cute place in the bottom of a valley with mountains surrounding on most sides. There is a vibrant blue river that runs through town and leads to a big swimming hole. Our guesthouse was unfinished, but the staff were super nice. They let us grab some of the leftover breakfast and leave our backpacks behind for our hike.
We were so excited to finally have 5 days of hiking in a row after lots of time in towns and cities. That would not end up being what we did, but more on that later. Our first hike was the Denelle hike which was about 13km and took 4 hours and 45 minutes for us to do 850m of elevation gain. The trail was relatively easy to find; we exited town, walked past the church and behind that were some of the hiking trailheads. We only ran into 8 other hikers on this trail, which was quiet for a weekend. It was all uphill, but there were many blackberries to eat on the way, a nice view of town below, and a shaded forest for some of it.
The end of the hike was a large open plain with mountains all around. There was an abandoned small village at the top with halfway crumbled stone walls remaining showing the foundations of some small homes. Nick really enjoyed the views and tranquility of that hike. The way down was fast and at the bottom we enjoyed a wonderful multiple course dinner from our guesthouse. It included soup, bread, vegetables, pickles, multiple chicken dishes, dessert, and more. Unfortunately, Nick got horrendous food poisoning from it all night but somehow I was spared.
Instead of hiking the next day it was a rest day for Nick, who was absolutely exhausted from his night in the bathroom. Nick has an unbelievably strong stomach, so normally when we eat the same food it’s me who suffers if there’s something wrong with it and not him. Due to that, I was convinced he had a stomach bug or somehow ate something I didn’t the night before. So I decided to eat at the guesthouse for dinner the next night, too, like an idiot. I’d say in hindsight it was a stupid decision but at that point we had never experienced Nick getting sick and not me, so the evidence seemed strong enough that the guesthouse was not to blame. Oh boy was it to blame. I got hit the next night after dinner.
Nick was feeling 50% recovered the third day. We were running out of days to do some of the most recommended trails. He did the Blue Eye hike without me as I needed a recovery day. The trail from Theth to the Blue Eye was relatively flat, but unremarkable. It was much busier than our hike two days before, and became even more busy close to the Blue Eye. There is a little village even closer to the Eye, and it is possible to take 4×4 taxis pretty close to the Eye, so it is very accessible and very busy. They Eye itself was pretty, but nothing spectacular.
The food poisoning definitely had some longer side effects than was ideal, but by the end of the third day we were able to eat some pizza. It was actually pretty good which surprised me. It made me regret getting the guesthouse dinner the second night. We did, however, have super bizarre service and it inspired me to include a rant about European vs. American service. In the USA (I assume because people are dependent on tips), we rarely encounter the type of blatantly bad and rude service that we do abroad (where tips are not expected). At this pizza place we ordered at the counter, then sat down and they brought us the food. Nothing too crazy. The pizza was cut enough that we could see the lines, but we could also just pick up the entire pizza and no slices would fall. I asked the guy who brought us our pizza if we could have a fork and knife. He said no because it’s already cut. I then asked if I could have one anyways (instead of showing him how the cuts really weren’t deep enough to be that helpful). He just walked away and after some time I saw he was just wiping trays and chatting. I just walked up to the counter and asked someone else for a fork and knife and he seemed angry about it. He also did not give us the right amount of change, which we did not know at the time. It was so strange to me, but this type of interaction happens all the time when we eat out in Europe (it feels like relative to how little it happens back in the USA). What a weird thing to be mad about. A diner wants a fork and knife? Why is that so crazy, especially when he was not busy at all. Nick and I laughed about it, but it was annoying that’s for sure.
We had to add an extra night in Theth, since I didn’t have the energy for our backpacking hike as scheduled. We were supposed to hike to Valbonë with all of our belongings and then have a full day there for day hikes. Luckily there was a guesthouse with a room available in Theth for one more day of rest.
Valbonë
After more days resting than hiking, it was finally time to hike to Valbonë. The hike was about 18km from Theth, went up about 1000m, and took us just under 7 hours to complete. The hike had a nice gradual incline all the way to the highest point, meandering through lots of forest to start. We were definitely not the only ones doing this hike and passed and were passed by many large groups. There was a section with a ton of sheep, too, that we had to sneak around.
We had cloudy weather for the first few hours, then heavy rain and thunderstorms for a few hours. We both got absolutely drenched and it did block what we assume were lovely views near the top for us. After posing for a photo at the top with the Albanian flag, we continued downhill. There was a large rock overhang that blocked most of the rain where several hikers hid for a lunch break. Nick and I found a nice little spot away from the crowds and enjoyed our lunch there, too. The wind came through and blew out some of the clouds just long enough for us to get a small peak at what the views normally look like.
The hike down was smooth and had less coverage than the first half. The rain stopped for the last hour or so of our hike which was necessary in order to warm up a bit. Valbonë was much more charming (we thought) than Theth. It felt like we time traveled and assumed this was what Theth was like 10 years ago before it blew up with popularity. There were many people there with small farmhouses who still lived there themselves. Our guesthouse host could barely speak english, but was so welcoming and adorable.
Our guesthouse had lots of chickens and bees and was super charming. We enjoyed an amazing dinner there on their balcony. I was happy neither of us had qualms about eating at guesthouses after our last place. Not that Nick has that tendency, but I definitely get suspicious. Dinner was an incredible vegetable soup, bread, a savory pastry, and salad. The balcony had a gorgeous view of the semi dry river bed and mountains, which was perfect for sunset.
Our final day in Albania was a travel day back to the city. It started with a bus at 10:00am from the main road. This was about 1.5 hours to get to where the ferry goes from. The drive was so nice and we got to see where the riverbed was not dry and full. It was such a nice vibrant blue color, we wished we had had time to swim and explore there. We had to wait around 1 hour for the ferry to Koman, which took a few hours. The ferry ride was stunning and reminded us of fjords. There were sharp mountains/cliffs right at the lakes edge and the boat meandered through the passages slowly. After taking in the views, Nick and I took turns napping on boat. There were only about 5 passengers so there was lots of room.
Many ferries arrived at Koman at the same time. Some were smaller with just passengers and another one was larger with private cars on it, too. The dock area had many shuttles, busses, and cars trying to all leave at once. Our boat captain told us which shuttle was ours based on our ticket. We were only a few people so we were able to depart fairly quickly and head back to Shkodër. It took a few hours as there was a lot of traffic and the road was under construction. When we did finally arrive, we dropped off our bags and headed to a nice dinner in town. It was our treat for not eating much the last week and for our last night in Albania. Unfortunately Shkodër is not really a great foodie destination and the dinner was just okay. We definitely had bad luck in Albania with the forest fires, construction, heat wave, food poisoning and thunder storms. We could tell it had a lot of potential to be super wonderful, though. Traveling full time for as long as we are, that happens sometimes.