Albania
The evocative ruins of the ancient Illyiran city of Apollonia sit on a windswept hilltop some 12km west of the city of Fier. While a large part of the…
Must-see attractions in Albania
Berat
Hidden behind the crumbling walls of the fortress that crowns the hill above Berat is the whitewashed, village-like neighbourhood of Kala; if you walk…
Tirana
This fantastic conversion – from a massive Cold War bunker on the outskirts of Tirana into a history and contemporary art museum – is Albania's most…
Shkodra
With spectacular views over the city and Lake Shkodra, the Rozafa Fortress is the most impressive sight in town. Founded by the Illyrians in antiquity and…
Tirana
The largest museum in Albania holds many of the country's archaeological treasures and a replica of Skanderbeg's massive sword (how he held it, rode his…
Tirana
Tracing the relatively brief history of Albanian painting from the early 19th century to the present day, this beautiful space also holds temporary…
Gjirokastra
Gjirokastra's eerie hilltop castle is one of the biggest in the Balkans. There's been a fortress here since the 12th century, although much of what can be…
Albania
This rarely visited yet magnificent little monastery is remotely located on a hilltop between the towns of Lushjë and Fier. With your own transport it's…
Gjirokastra
This incredible three-storey house dates from 1811 and has twin towers and a double-arched facade. It's fascinating to nose around the almost unchanged…
Gjirokastra
Gjirokastra's most interesting sight in no way relates to traditional architecture, but instead to a far more modern kind: this is a giant bunker built…
Berat
The Onufri Museum is situated in the Kala quarter's biggest church, the Church of the Dormition of St Mary (Kisha Fjetja e Shën Mërisë). The church itself…
Marubi National Photography Museum
Shkodra
The Marubi Museum is a one-of-a-kind Albanian photographic museum. The core of the collection is the impressive work of the Marubi 'dynasty', Albania's…
Durrës
This ultra-modern, well lit and labelled museum just back from the seafront has a breathtaking collection of historical artefacts. Highlights include the…
Tirana
Just 25km east of Tirana is Mt Dajti National Park. It is the most accessible mountain in the country, and many locals go there to escape the city rush…
Tirana
Sheshi Skënderbej is the best place to start witnessing Tirana's daily goings-on. Until it was pulled down by an angry mob in 1991, a 10m-high bronze…
Albania
The Blue Eye Spring is a magical place: a hypnotic pool of deep blue water surrounded by electric-blue edges like the iris of an eye. It's further…
Former Residence of Enver Hoxha
Tirana
This simple three-storey villa was the home of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha for decades, and his wife continued to live here for years after his death in…
Tirana
Designed by Enver Hoxha's daughter and son-in-law and completed in 1988, this monstrously unattractive building was formerly the Enver Hoxha Museum and…
Tirana
To one side of Sheshi Skënderbej, the 1789–1823 Et'hem Bey Mosque was spared destruction during the atheism campaign of the late 1960s because of its…
Berat
Down in the traditionally Muslim Mangalem quarter, there are three grand mosques: the Sultan's Mosque, the Lead Mosque and the Bachelors' Mosque. All are…
Berat
They might be fairly small, but these waterfalls, which from a distance appear to disappear in and out of the rocks, have a rare beauty and make for a…
Tirana
The little cousin to the main Bunk'Art, this museum, which is within a communist-era bunker and underground tunnel system below the Ministry of Internal…
Gjirokastra
The lovingly restored Ottoman-era Skenduli House has been in the hands of the same family for generations (apart from a few years during the communist…
Berat
Just off the steep hillside that leads up to Berat's castle is this excellent museum, which is housed in a beautiful 18th-century Ottoman house that's as…
Site of Witness & Memory Museum
Shkodra
During the communist period this building, which started life as a Franciscan seminary, was officially used as the Shkodra headquarters of the Ministry of…
Theth
A superb half-day hike from Theth is to the Blue Eye, a natural pool of turquoise waters fed by a small waterfall, up in the mountains to the southwest of…
Tirana
This grand old 1930s building started life as Albania's first maternity hospital, but within a few years the focus turned from creating new life to ending…
Durrës
The weathered Roman-era Amphitheatre of Durrës was built on the hillside inside the city walls in the early 2nd century AD. In its prime it had the…
Tirana
This dramatically set 15th-century hilltop castle, just a short distance outside Tirana, is worth a trip if you're not visiting one of the other better…
Theth
A visit to this fascinating 400-year-old 'lock-in tower' gives you an idea of the life those condemned by their family ties would lead as they waited,…
Tirana
At the top of Rr Elbasanit is the Martyrs' Cemetery, where some 900 partisans who died in WWII are buried. The views over the city and surrounding…
Saranda
These ruins of a 5th-century synagogue are located right in the heart of town and provide evidence of one of the earliest Balkan-Jewish communities. There…
Berat
The 16th-century Sultan's Mosque is one of the oldest in Albania. The Helveti teqe (a place of worship for those practising the Bektashi branch of Islam)…
National Archaeological Museum
Tirana
The collection here is comprehensive and impressive in parts, but there's only minimal labelling in Albanian and none at all in English (nor are tours in…
Gjirokastra
As well as photos of the partisan resistance against the Italians and a vast number of rifles and machine guns, it's possible to visit the cells where…
Theth
This late-19th-century stone-and-shingle church looks incredible in silhouette against the mountains that surround it, topped as it is with a rustic…
Gjirokastra
This interesting museum is a beautifully lit and presented, fully English-signed display on the long and fascinating history of the town. Some highlights…
Saranda
Housed in Saranda's old customs house overlooking the town wharf, this interesting museum contains many fascinating photographs from the communist era,…
Statue of the Unknown Partisan
Tirana
The socialist realist Statue of the Unknown Partisan, just off Sheshi Skënderbej, seems to be aiming his weapons at the Parliament building (1924) down…
Shkodra
The small museum inside the Rozafa Fortress is worth a look for anyone interested in the history of the fortress and town and covers the neolithic period…
