Walking the Albanian Alps Traveller Reviews

It was an Albanian experience,seeing its mountains,it people and its history. Our Albanian guide showed us and told us so much. A wonderful and slightly different experience,especially as Albania has had such troubled times.

Highly professional and well thought through. It was of great benefit that our guide was local.

Superb trekking in a remote area of the Alps, and in a country still emerging from years of isolation. Warm welcoming people, superb unspoiled scenery, great food.

KE always deliver exactly what they promise in their brochure and at a great price. They are easy to contact and easy to deal with. The booking process is excellent, and the pre-trip reminders very useful.

We walked for several days in the Northern Albanian alps, which are very rugged and remote - and extremely beautiful. The walking was not difficult and paths are generally well marked maintained. We had lots of time to view scenery - when the clouds lifted - and to stop off in makeshift cafes or local homes to refresh ourselves with turkish coffee, soft drinks and local delicacies en route. The family run guest houses where we stayed were quite basic, but very welcoming and comfortable - most had open fires. We enjoyed home made food (and sometimes raki!) which was plentiful and tasty - lots of home produced eggs, cheese, and vegetables as well as bread, pancakes, honey and other delights. The walking was topped and tailed with enjoyable nights in the historic towns of Skodhra (Skoder) and Kruje where we stayed in good quality hotels, ate very well and had great opportunities for cultural sight seeing and shopping - as well as a welcome chance to get out of the walking boots!

KE Adventure is a professional, specialist outfit offering interesting and well thought through itineraries. They provide useful information and guidance to help prepare your trip and all is smoothly organised - even in less visited or unusual tourist destinations.

I'm form Israel and my family was all "but Albania's full of muslims! You'll get killed!", but the opposite happened. You need to be there, to undearstand just how kind and accepting people are there. There is genuine happiness in the mountain-dwellers' eyes when visitors come in (e.g. the Crazy Sock Lady in Thethi, who we honetsly believed to be insane by just how happy she was to have us in her home, browing hand-knitted socks). You visit four contrasting locations - the urban, lively Shkodre; the isolated, friendly Thethi; the sparse, and rather empty (but cozy!) Valbona; and finally the crown jewel - Kruje, and bustling tourist town during the day, but a deathly quite, beautifuly peaceful walk down the alley at night. The absence of visiting the capital, Tirana, did not bug me - I wanted to experience a new culture, rather than a familiar urban one. The walks are mesmerizingly beautiful, if a tad difficult - days 3 and 7 were particularly hard, with very steep ascents that I didn't expect. The level 5 difficulty gives the illusion of it being moderate, and thus easier than it really is, given the 12-level scale. But the challange was good, and there are options for walkers who think a certain day would be too difficult (the walk from Thethi to Valbona can be done on horseback). The absolute best part was the guide, Alfred, who, although not much older than myself (and I was the youngest one in the group), definitely showed expertice in his field, knowing the history and geography of the country and being genuinly proud of his homeland. It takes a good guide to make a good organized trip, full of unfamiliar faces - where I felt insecure at frst, being nearly the only one not from Britain and THE only one not from western Europe, I found my place very quickly. If you're looking for a uniquely different place to see, where people are happy with what they have and are trying to make it better, mixed with some challenging walk and stunning scenery, Albania is definitely the place for you - at least for one holiday.

Spectacular mountain walking and wonderful hospitality in the remote border regions of Northern Albania

We have used KE for a number of years