TIRANA, April 13 – With one month to go before Albania’s summer tourist season kicks off, several prestigious media and travel portals have recommended Albania as a secret treasure and off-the-radar destination.
“I was very surprised by how beautiful the landscape is,” says Lara Vecchio, a tourist from Italy. “It truly feels wild,” she told California-based Ozy portal.
“It’s got beaches with clear blue waters that shimmer with the best of the Mediterranean; there are enough mountains and rivers for endless days of hiking and rafting; and to the south sit UNESCO World Heritage sites and castles that have seen the rise and fall of great empires like the Byzantine and Ottoman,” says Ozy.
U.S.-based The Gazette Review has also placed Albania among the top 10 places to travel in 2016.
“In Albania, you’ll experience a mix of cultures and customs. Travel through breathtaking mountain vistas, discover ruins from the Ottoman Empire, and explore this underrated gem before the tour groups start to arrive,” says the Minneapolis-base portal.
The UK’s Wonderlust portal suggests hiking the Accursed Mountains for mountain tourism lovers.
The One Week Adventures portal says affordability, the wonderful contrasts and friendly people are the three reasons why Albania should not be missed by tourists who have a week to spare.
“Hidden away in an almost forgotten corner of Europe, Albania is Europe’s next upcoming travel destination,” says the portal.
Italy’s Infoturismiamoci travel blog placed the Dhermi beach in the southern Albania Riviera as one of the top 10 destinations worth visiting for 2016. Dhermi offers a combination of rocky and sandy beaches with crystal clear waters.
Albania has also participated in several key international travel fairs this week promoting the best of its tourism including Berlin, Milan, Madrid, Prague, Belgrade.
Prime Minister Edi Rama has described tourism as new opportunity to promote growth, employment and investments.
“We are all aware that tourism is one of the real sources of economic growth and for us it is one of those sources serving as a basis for the development of our new economic model, a sustainable growth with economic growth, employment, social and regional cohesion and in sustainable equilibrium with the environment and natural and cultural heritage,” Prime Minister Rama has said.
Last year’s opening of the Sazan Island, a former military base some 20 kilometers from the coastal town of Vlora, to local and foreign tourists for the first time in 70 years, and a Cold War secret bunker outside Tirana that the former communist regime had built underground decades ago to survive a possible nuclear attack, also attracted a lot of interest among international media and visitors.
In late 2015, prestigious French newspaper Le Figaro placed Albania as one of the top five global destinations for 2016. Featuring a picture of the ancient Rozafa castle in the northern city of Shkodra, Le Fiagaro said Albania will surprise everybody just like it did with its first-ever qualification in a major football competition such as France 2016.
