ALBANIAN RIVIERA ROADTRIP!! Albanian Food, Beaches & Attractions | Albania

We're gonna continue this road trip. I'm excited. Albania and Rivera are both the best. Much more to see, man. Much more to see. Good morning, everyone. I hope you're all doing amazing. This is David Hoffman from David's Been Here. Coming at you from beautiful Saranda, Albania. Today, I am super pumped because I'm finally driving up to Valor. There's so many beautiful things about that city. And what we're doing is we're starting off right here in Saranda at the best burek shop in the city. It's called Burek Turi. And then after this, we're gonna make lots of stops along the way on the coast. You know, there's two different drives to get up to Valor. You go more internal. You just go straight up on a highway. Or you go on the coast. It's a little longer, but you have lots of stops. Yeah, man. Now, first, we are going to have some burek. And then we are going to explore the most beautiful coastline we have here. So, it's amazing. You'll have a lot of panoramic view all the way. Best burek shop in Saranda. For me, cheese. Burek. What'd you get? I've had a lot of breakfasts here in Albania. And I gotta say, this one takes the cake. It is amazing. This pie. It's a cheap breakfast. It's typical. You can find it everywhere in every city. Many Albanians have this kind of breakfast. And I can say this is the cheapest in the world. Cheapest breakfast. This and this together. Together cost 70 cents. Wow. 0.7. Yeah, so like he said, this is dala. Dala. Right? Yogurt. I saw how they made this. It's pretty amazing. I think a real meal would be two of these. At least for a grown man like me. But I'm taking it easy today. I have a burek. The dala. And that's it. What a way to start the morning. And this burek shop has three bureks. So, they have the cheese one. The onion. And the cabbage one. The cabbage one sounds interesting. But the cheese is the best. Wakes you up, huh? Yeah, so we had to pass like 36 hours here in Sardinia. But we haven't actually explored this area. Which is the old town. Over here we have some ruins. What is that? That's the synagogue from the 5th century. Actually, nowadays they have only the ruins. But still a beautiful mosaic is existing. So, we are going inside. And we can check it from closer. So, if you want to, you can visit the synagogue, right? We just walked in. And this is it. Just ruins. I mean, it's basically the structure, right? And over here we have the walls of the synagogue. These are massive walls. Look at that. They are super wide. Super high. And there you go. Another incredible sight. Just lots of ruins here in Albania. This place is ancient. And here we have a nice stairway that leads to the sea. Restaurants. Bars. Apartments. It's super nice though. They cleaned it up, huh? Yeah. So, this is where everyone likes to walk. Especially in the afternoon. People are hanging out with their families, with their girlfriends. Everyone is in the center. And here we have the sea. We have a mini port here. The main port is in the back. But this one is just like, what? Touristic boats? Touristic boats. Fisherman boats. If you want to have a tour around. Because we have a few bays. Who are about half an hour or an hour from here. Very beautiful. And the car cannot go there. So, you have to take a boat, rent a boat to go and check. How beautiful is it. And you can have a private beach, in fact. Early morning, the fishermen come here with their fishes that they took from the sea. So, they sell it here for a very good price. All the fishes. Wild. It's good. Tasty. You can see it's so tasty, man. And beautiful. Good fish. Extra fish. And over there we have crabs. So, we have like five different boats here. They brought in their catch for the morning. Wow, it smells good. So, basically, all night fishing, they get here around six in the morning. And they have their catch, right? Again, four boats. They're cleaning all their catch. This one is just like non-stop crab. Here, you want a crab? These are huge water bottles with mussels. Look at this. What is this? Oh, okay, okay. Because they have their own farms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Wow, this is a great experience. So, if you ever come here, Port of Saranda, 6 a.m. to around 9, you'll see them doing this. And this is the boardwalk of Saranda. People are already at the beach. That's awesome. This is the public beach. Because if you have noticed, most of the beaches are private. And you have to pay to stay over there. But this in the center of Saranda is for free. And the good thing is, here is not big waves. Because it's like a bay. It's like a secret bay, yeah. And so, it's public. No need to pay. Just take your umbrella, some towel, and you can enjoy. Even though it's a public beach, it is beautiful. Right in the center of Saranda. I would personally buy an apartment right here. Or rent one with my family. Just walk out here. Make it very easy. There's also a place here for kids. A little playground. Yeah, many playgrounds. This is very, very favorite by families for kids. Kids family. Let me ask you. What is this? An ancient ruin? Yeah, that's an ancient ruin. That's the old city walls of Saranda. Because as every city, Saranda was also part of Roman Empire. And here was city walls surrounding the main center. This is called Jamaica. Jamaica. Jamaica Cafe or Bar. This is awesome. So, it's an open air bar. Cocktail bar right here. Right on the beach. Right in the old part of town. Right there we have the bigger part of the beach. We have some ships. And we have some coffee. My friend, the best. Coffee is the best here in Saranda. Oh, man. Oh, wow. It's a strong coffee. It's good though. Wake you up. So, that's what you can do. If you come here at 7 in the morning, you can do everything we just did. Burek. See the fish market. Come here to the Burek. See the beach. Enjoy a cup of coffee. So, three very different and interesting things to do within one hour. Great way to start the day. Are you ready for the road trip? Yeah. We have a long journey. Yeah. We have three hours plus stops. Now, let's head back to the car. Yeah. We have a lot of stops on the way. A lot of stops. It's a long journey. If you just go straight, it's three and a half. So, first, this is called Albania Riviera, which is the most beautiful part of Albania. The thing that we are proud of. Because we'll see all the journey up until Vlorë. The view will be amazing. So, we have a lot of bays all the way to Vlorë. A lot of beautiful scenery. Beautiful beaches. A lot of olive trees on the way. Beautiful houses from the 15th century, 16th century. So, this is the thing we are proud of. And what is special more is the many restaurants next to the seaside. And many clubs and everything. Yeah. So, there are tons of places to stop along the way. You can stay on this route. There's a Himara and like a lot of other places. Yeah. So, many villages that offer to you all accommodation, restaurant, beach. Exactly. Everything. So, if you want to, you can do this route like we're doing today. But take a day, two days, five days to make your way up to Vlorë. Slowly, you know, enjoying your time. Perfect family vacation right here. This is like incredible. I want to bring my kids here. This is like the best. Beautiful beach every single day. Amazing food every single day. And stunning scenery. I mean, you can't get better than this. So, for the past 25 minutes, we've been driving along this beautiful coastline. Just incredible. We're going basically through tons of small towns and villages, right? Lots of villages. Just going up and around. It's a very winding road. But it's incredibly beautiful. You see farmers. You see goats. I mean, it is a different place. A lot of olive trees also. So, this area is famous for olive oil. Okay. Yeah. So, we have to try some whenever we can. Yeah. We'll stop. The first stop will be Borsji Waterfalls. Oh, wow. Which is a very beautiful place with natural waterfalls beside the bar area. So, we can enjoy a drink there and in the sound of waterfalls. I didn't know this. It was great. So, we are in the village of Borsji, famous for olive oil and for its beach. So, this is the largest bay we have in this Riviera of Albania. And this is where we're stopping. Right in the center of town. And the waterfall is around here. I can hear it. You can hear it. But I don't see it. It's probably right behind, right? Yeah. Somewhere here. All right. So, the waterfall is literally in the back of this cafe bar. Oh, wow. This is awesome, bro. They literally built this restaurant over the waterfalls. Dude, this is incredible. Yeah. What a spot. The best spot to have a coffee or if you are during the lunch time, you can have lunch here also. I'm going to have a rakija. Rakija. Let's go sit down somewhere. Look at this. Woo. This is so nice, man. All right, guys. Gezor. Perfect. It's better. Yeah. Dude, nice. I think it's plumb. Plumb. It might be plumb. But this, with the sound, nice air coming through like we're sitting here in the heat with this air. Amazing, bro. Super. What doesn't need more from life? It's the best life. Every single day in Albania is an amazing day. Drink rakija. Enjoy the scenery. Come here in summer. Summer in Albania. This cafe bar is called Borshi Waterfall. Borshi Waterfall. Yeah. So that's the name of it. Obviously, the waterfalls cascading all the way down. You have lots of different tables up here, more tables over there, and beautiful breeze. And the rakija costs 100 lakh per, you know, so $1 each. We're going to continue this road trip. I'm excited. Albanian Riviera, bro. The best. Much more to see, man. Much more to see. This is Albanian Riviera. Get used to it. Let's continue. This is the best. I can't even believe this place. I'm super happy I did this. Remember, guys, Borshi is only an hour drive from Senanda going north. Let's continue. So after the amazing waterfalls of Borshi, next stop in 20 minutes, far distance, is Porto Palermo Castle, a triangle castle built by Venetians and then controlled by Alipar Stefelena, just next to a bay called Porto Palermo, also its same name. Let's see it. Let's visit it. This is amazing. Look at this beautiful bay. Crystal clear water, incredible yachts, boats, a beach. I mean, this is stunning, bro. Stunning. Blue, blue. The sky blue. And here we have a castle. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it's Albania, man. It's like you can see things. So this is Porto Palermo Castle. It was built by Alipar Stefelena in the early 19th century. Scorching hot. This path going up is a pure rocky path. I mean, super jagged edges. Bring some comfortable walking shoes. I would not suggest coming up here in sandals. We don't have any documents that prove that this castle is built by Venetians. But from the structure, it looks like it's a Venetian castle. If you remember the castle in Butrin, triangle castle, it's the same form. But the only documents we have, we know that this castle is built by Alipar Stefelena during the 18th century. This was used by Alipar Stefelena for his soldiers, his wife, and for himself to have fun. Because he had a harem area. We'll see it later. But what is interesting, during the communist time, this was converted into a storage place for oil. For example, you can see here. This is original Italian writings, like cucina. So it was a kitchen during the Italian, when they come here during the Second World War. But during communist time, it was used for diesel. Naf means diesel. So this room was for diesel tanks. This place is so different. I haven't been to a fortress like this. So this is more than just a castle. This is more of a home. Lots of different rooms. There's like nine different rooms here. And over here, we have a view. The balcony, Alipar built for his lover, his wife. So she needed to take a break because she was staying all day inside. And she asked him to build a balcony and she built this one. This is really incredible. I mean, he built this terrace with this view. I mean, the view. If I lived here in the 19th century, I'd be in that water every day. Well, I don't know if they wore bathing suits back then. This is a straight up labyrinth, man. I don't even know where anything is here. So the best part of the castle is the terrace, which is on top. And there is the best view. And we can see all the Ionian Sea. And everything looks a panorama view. So here we have the room for the soldiers. And right in front of it, we have a stairway going straight up to a panorama view. So the best view is from that side. Beautiful terrace. Huge. The interior feels small compared to this. This is just ginormous. What a great place because here, it's like you can do both. See history and go to the beach. This is the best for yoga. I can sit here, all the seaside is in front of you. Amazing. It's a hot zone for sure. Super, super scorching hot. Obviously, it's ruins in the hottest time of the year. August 15. It is boiling right now. Wow, but I gotta say, this is super impressive. I mean, 4 here in the middle of a bay on a small little peninsula with a beach. Incredible views. Super crystal clear water. This is Albania. Can't stress it enough. We just finished with the castle. It was epic. But where to next? Next is Himara, man. It's 10 minutes away. It's another version of Saranda, but it's much smaller. Himara town. There you can find beach, restaurants, bars, clubs. Everything you need to relax yourself. 10 days, 15 days, whatever. Wow. Another epic spot. I'm sure people go there for nightlife, right? Yeah, yeah. It's very nice. A lot of beaches around. It's only 10 minutes from here. 10 minutes from here. Perfect. We are now in Laman, just 5 minutes from Himara. But as I told you, many bays, many beaches. And this is Laman, the best. My favorite. I mean, unfortunately for us, we don't have time to stop and jump in the water. But we can take a shot from here. Yeah, this is gorgeous. Wow, what a beautiful, beautiful place. So we made it to Himara, which is the small town. Very beautiful. This is the first beach they have, like a bit out of the center. This is called Potam. And here we are going to enjoy another coffee. And we can see the beach. People just dreaming, swimming. Yeah. We got off the car and we came into Hotel Dima. This is a good restaurant for lunch, but also for accommodation. You have the sea just a few meters away in front of it. And you can enjoy a good time. Hey, good job, bro, good job. Albanian Riviera, driving along the coast, stopping for some raki, jumping in the water. I mean, no better feeling. I'm becoming Albanian, straight up. Who else can drink this at 10 in the morning? Okay, I'm going to cross the street and get a view of the beach. Oh, wow. Another beauty. Another incredible beach here on Albanian Riviera. Look at this. Wow, white sand beach. I love the umbrellas. The mountains over here, you got boats. What amazingness. How much for one pig? One pig. Two or four? We are here only because we have our little daughter. And this beach is familiar. But we go, usually we go to Dermi, to Jan, where it's more, the night life is more active. Exactly. Yes. Okay, I'm sorry, what's your names? Erlin. And you? Nagi. Nagi, okay, perfect. So, they're saying this is a great family beach. But there's also nightlife here, from what I heard. Here in Potam. In Potam? Yes. And in the other side, it's called Laman Beach. And it's more for the young people. I came down to the beach, started taking photos, filming, and then this couple, super nice, they were like, oh man, we follow you. And then we just started talking and, yeah, super nice. Everybody's super open here in Albania. That's one thing you'll notice when you get here. Everybody will talk, they want to talk to foreigners, they want to, you know, welcome you to their country. Super hospitable. Where we just were in Himara was the southern part. Now we're crossing to the older town. Another beach, more buildings, more restaurants. Beach town, that's what this is. Yeah. Summer, it's popping. Winter, it's closed. After we left from Himara, so we have a few bays, a few beaches on the way, and we just crossed Nyalja, which is considered the most beautiful one. But the young generation, they prefer Vrmi, Vrmi Beach, which is next to Nyalja. And, except the beach, Vrmi has a very beautiful village, but later, because this first one is Vuno. Cobblestone street, lots of traffic. Obviously, this is the highway. This goes, this is the entire Albanian Riviera. You have to cross through here to get to Vlor, or Salande, if you're taking this road. Very beautiful in terms of the color, right? So the white, also with the beautiful orange on top, the roofs. Yeah, wooden windows, so makes this village a very, very traditional one. We are reaching Vrmi, another beautiful village. This is the favorite beach for young generation. Vrmi, everybody loves Vrmi. Not only for its beach, but also for its old village. So, it is just renovated last year with beautiful traditional houses from this area. One of the best we have, and you're going to enjoy it. And this is Vrmi Beach. Super long, beautiful beach. There's actually a boardwalk here. So you have the boardwalk, then you have never-ending umbrellas, you have bars, restaurants. Another gorgeous beach. I mean, there's dozens and dozens of these along the Albanian Riviera. Obviously, we're hitting up the most important ones. Unfortunately, I'm doing this road trip with limited time, so I'm not going in the water. I would highly suggest doing this and taking your time doing this over five days. So every day, you can go to a different beach, move apartments, move hotels, whatever you want to do, or go back. This place is amazing. Yeah, man. That's why people love this place. It's like a paradise. So now you guys know, you have to come to Vrmi Beach. Three-kilometer-long beach. It's beautiful. Come here. Tons of restaurants. You can relax. You can enjoy. Rent an apartment here. Stay at a hotel right here. And that's it, guys. Let's go. Next is Palas Beach. So we are about five minutes away from Palas. Palas Beach. And now we're going through the mountain. It's next to the sea, but it's a little more in. You feel it. Trees everywhere. These are all olive trees, olive groves. Over here, really high mountains, like monster mountains, bro. What is that? Up there? Yeah. We are going up there. We're going up there. That's crazy. That's the Logara National Park. Wow. So this place is a lot less developed. It's more of a rugged-style beach. So you have the beach, lots of rocks. Over here, you have some... Oh, my God. A paraglider. It's paragliding, right? Yeah. And yeah, over here to the right, we have some huge buildings. I guess it's a resort. Some few bars over here. Like basically just open-air bars. And this is the beach. Yeah, so this beach is a lot less crowded. Sand, also big rocks. Then when you get close to the water, just pure rocks. And everybody's spread out, right? So most of these people brought their own umbrellas. Over here, we have obviously like a set bar restaurant with umbrellas there. So I'm guessing it's like 12, 15-year-old, you know? That's sort of how it works here. Five to 10 euros for an umbrella plus two chairs. You can rent some jet skis here. It's another beautiful place. God, this country's Riviera is just absolutely amazing. Man, the paraglider is really close. Whoa. Look at this. How much? One euro? No, no. My vendor here, he's trying to sell this for five euros. I gave him 50 cents. Mmm. Oh, delicioso. Bueno. Oh, yeah. Nice fruit. Oh, man, I need this. I haven't eaten in like three, four hours. So scorching. Mm-hmm. My friend, we did it. And that was our last beach on this epic road trip. Palas. Palas is super rustic. It's wild. I mean, you have the mountain. You have Rocky Beach. It's more spread out. Beautiful place. Again, crystal clear waters. And just this scenery here with seeing all the cliffs, the mountains, the water. I mean, just epic spot. One of my favorite locations like in the Balkans for sure. I mean, I've never been to a place like this. I know this is very similar to like Italian Riviera, but still very, very different. The water is completely different from Italian Riviera. And now we're heading up the mountain. We're going to get a view over everything. We're going super high up. So where is this? That's it. That's the top of our journey. And we are going to have the panorama view. We have a balcony over there, which can see all the Rionians, see all the Albanian Riviera. So we made it here to the top of the mountain. Look at this. Look at this view. And this is the viewpoint. Look at this. Incredible. Beaches. Here is the spot for paragliding. So they start right here. And behind us, we have these massive mountains. Wow. I mean, another spot, right? You have to stop here? This is like every Albanian has to take a picture for Instagram here. So as we do, as we are doing, so we took also some pictures here. And people love this. So there's two different ways to get photos here. You can sit here. And it looks like it's like, you know, you're on the edge, which you're really not. There's a little bit of a drop here. And then over here, you have the mountains. So stand right there. And you have the entire mountain behind you. I think that's the shot for me. Last time we're going to Tourist Village of Logara, which is the best and most unique place in this park. So this restaurant is located up in the mountain. As you can see, it's basically, it's a huge forest here. Super hilly. We went up. Now we're going down. And from here, do we have a view of the sea or no? No, from here, no. But in about 20 minutes, it's the other part of Lora where we can see the sea. But here we are in the park and we are going to have a delicious lunch here in the Village Park of Logara. So there's a hotel and a restaurant. Over here, we have like different cottages. In the middle, we have deer. And you can go there and feed them, right? You can just buy some food and feed them. Yeah. Children, they love it. Yeah. So they're doing right there. Okay. So here on the property, they have nine deer. And if you want, you can basically just buy some corn and feed them the corn. We just fed them, but there's some on the floor here. Remember, you can't touch up here. Don't be like that. And this is Logara Tourist Village. So it's a hotel and restaurant. In the middle, they have this place where, you know, kids can play, mini park, right? They got deer. And they have amazing food here. They have a lot of lamb, a lot of veg, a lot of forest, a lot of mountain stuff. And they brought me four different raquias to try. It's pretty wild. I'm just going to like sip everything a little bit because I'm super hungry. So I don't want to like drink anything right now. Okay, guys. So I'm going to try first this one, which is plums. Then we have wild berries, blueberries, and then juniper. Okay. They are strong. The wild berries. It's different. You know, it's almost like a raspberry or something. Mm-hmm. Blueberry, you can taste it. Taste blueberry. And then juniper, which is the same thing as gin, right? Well, this is what makes gin. Ooh. Dude, that is fire. This is like a straight-up gin raquia. This is pretty amazing. I'm doing a flight of raquia before our lunch. I cannot wait. And in the back, they're roasting a huge lamb. I mean, this thing is like a monster. What I love about it is that they're also roasting the intestines. So we're going to eat ribs. We're going to eat maybe some cojones. I don't know. Let's see if they have that. It's difficult to come, and we have so many things. I'm thinking just where to start. But I think we should start with this hot cheese because later it will be cold and not so tasty like now. Like I already said, we have an epic feast here. It's like nonstop stuff. First, we have to try this. Grilled cheese in the tava. Delicious. I love it. It has a crust, and then the inside is a little soft, right? Yeah. This tava also comes with some vegetables. So here we have tomatoes, and then we also have green pepper. I love this one. This cheese tava, bro. I mean, there's so many things. I know we should jump on a salad, but let's do this, man. There's ribs. Before it gets cold. Yeah, can't get cold. It just falls apart, man. Feel the fat. Going nuts on this thing. I love the little burnt taste. Crunchiness of the grill. It's still different when it's grilled compared to baked. Smokiness. Next up, I'm going to try this amazing pepper-like paste. Oh, it's so amazing. You can smell it. It's going to be a little spicy. Look at that. And this is what you eat in the mountains. Always a meat feast, including veg. This is super creamy, but the heat of the red pepper. Oh my God, it's so good. I'm going to have to have a little more. This is like one of the best pastes we've tried. And here we have grilled vegetables. We have eggplant, red pepper, and maybe green pepper in there. They're all super moist. Basically, just a good grilled veg. Here we have roasted lamb. It's little ribs, right? You got to pull them out. I can't do this with a fork. It's delicious. If you like lamb, you will die here. This is one of my favorite things in Albania. Lots of lamb. Look at this piece. Look at this. Take it apart. Look at this flesh. But here, we're having the legs and the wings of the quail. Oh, sweet, man. So sweet. But it's so fantastic, bro. Just pull all that meat out. It's like super sweet rice. And this is the wild mushrooms. I'm going to finish them all. And next, I'm trying their special burek. It is super packed with cheese. Nice and doughy. So in comparison to the burek we had this morning, this one is like jam-packed. It has many more layers. It's smaller, obviously, because they cut it in squares, but wow, super fresh yogurt on top. So fresh. So I was super excited for the meats, but I completely skipped the salad and the olives. So I'm going to jump on here. Wow, so it's orange and olive. Unique combination. If I could, I would eat more, but I got to jump on this. So here we have the salad. And this is like a tosta. So it's basically a Caesar salad on a tosta. So it's like a Caesar salad. Very similar. It's creamy. I think there's some chicken in here as well. Some nuts. And they have balsamic vinegar. So I'm done with the food, guys. It's like overkill. So delicious. Got to have some more rakia. Hey, bro, have some of the rakia. I can't anymore. I have no idea. And lastly, we're trying the specialty of the house. This is yogurt with honey and walnuts. Oh my God, super fresh. That combination. The textures. The sweetness. The crunchiness of the walnut. Can't tell you how fresh this yogurt is. It is. Another amazing meal in Albania. Wow. I mean, the whole day was epic. We started off in Saranda. Incredible time there. We had some burek. We saw the fish market. We had a coffee. Then we started driving north on the Albanian Riviera. Incredible journey. It's a three and a half hour drive to Vlorë. On the way, you stop. You see beaches. You see waterfall. You get epic views. And then you can finish it all off right here for lunch. I got to say, this blew my mind today. Albanian Riviera is super beautiful. You have to visit. When you come to Albania, you will love it. Guys, if you love this video, give me a thumbs up. Leave a comment below. Subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. I'll see you in the next tropical adventure in Albania. Bye.