Albania | JOURNEYS
With Greece to its south, Montenegro to its north and Italy just across the pond, Albania is a culinary and cultural crossroads where Mediterranean freshness meets Balkan heartiness. Like nearby Italy, Spain and southern France, the country experiences mild winters and hot, dry summers, ideal for grape-ripening. The vineyards smattered along its coast experience similar conditions to those in Portugal's Douro Valley, while its mountainous grape-growing regions have been likened to Italy's Piedmont or France's Rhône Valley.
If the food and wine isn't enough to get you booking a trip, Albania has almost 500 kilometres of dramatic riviera, speckled with beach bars, seafood restaurants and crystal-clear coves to splash around in. So how has a destination that offers so much managed to quietly coast under the radar for so long?
A BRIEF HISTORY
Up until the mid 1980s, Albania had spent nearly half a century under the strict communist leadership of Enver Hoxha. Albanians were forbidden to travel, nothing was imported and taxpayer funds were pumped into building thousands of underground bunkers for an invasion the
