TIRANA, February 3-Albania is a diverse destination that blends beaches, mountains, and breathtaking nature with a rich cultural and historical heritage, writes Sebastien Desurmont for the prestigious French magazine GEO Magazine.
The country offers a mosaic of influences stretching from ancient Greek and Roman times to the Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman periods, creating a unique Mediterranean identity.
“The northern coast, meanwhile, holds one of Albania’s most beautiful sites, the ancient city of Bouthroton, now Butrint. Perched on a hill surrounded by a lagoon and covered with trees, shrubs, and eucalyptus, the layers of history come alive,” Desurmont writes.
Human presence here dates back 50,000 years, and Butrint was continuously inhabited from around 1000 BC to the 19th century. Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, and Ottomans settled in succession, preserving the legacy of their predecessors.
Butrint is the crown jewel of Albania’s Mediterranean coast and the perfect starting point to explore north along the Ionian coastline, where wild coves alternate with long sandy or pebbly beaches over some 160 kilometers.
“Its ruins are the key to understanding everything you will see along the Albanian Riviera,” explains Dhimitër Çondi, now 75, the country’s former chief archaeologist. He has published dozens of books on the city’s treasures: the sanctuary of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine; the ancient theater; imposing Byzantine basilicas; and its polychrome mosaic baptistery, among the finest in Southern Europe.
“In this land that enchanted Lord Byron and Eugène Delacroix, visitors walk in the footsteps of Aeneas, the hero of the Trojan War, who, according to Virgil, stayed here,” Kondi continues.
He also notes that sometimes guides recite fragments from Racine’s Andromaque, which sets its tragic events in Butrint.
This southern Albania truly contributed to the grand book of Antiquity. Yet for decades it had been forgotten, along with the unapologetic beauty of its coastline, which remained largely inaccessible under Enver Hoxha’s Stalinist dictatorship.
“The land of eagles now dreams of making up for lost time.”
With tourism booming—12 million visitors last year, an 80% increase over five years—travelers are advised to plan their stops carefully.
Just four kilometers from Butrint, one can easily bypass the overcrowded peninsula of Ksamil. During the dark years of dictatorship, its idyllic lagoon was bordered by the dictator’s summer residence and a large agricultural estate where thousands of prisoners were kept under appalling conditions.
Today, advertising boards proudly proclaim it the “Maldives of the Mediterranean,” Desurmont notes in GEO Magazine.