Valbona Valley National Park

Valbona Valley National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Valbona is the valley on the eastern side of the Albanian Alps, reached from Shkodër by the ferry along the Koman lake and the road up from Fierza, and it is visited almost entirely as one half of the Valbona-to-Theth trek, the walk over the Valbona pass that is sold in two- and three-day packages from Tirana and Shkodër: the coach to Koman, the three-hour ferry through the gorges of the lake, the minibus to Valbona, a night in a guesthouse, the crossing to Theth on foot with a guide or self-guided with a map, a night in Theth and the minibus back to Shkodër over the Thore pass. The guided versions add the guide and the luggage transfer by mule;

the self-guided ones supply the transport, the beds and the map, which is enough for the marked path. The day trips from Shkodër to the valley by ferry and minibus give a few hours in Valbona and the lake, and the kayak-and-hike tours paddle a stretch of the Koman lake on the way. The Kruja and Durrës departures are the same trek from other towns. The park has no entrance fee. Independent visitors book the Koman ferry ahead in summer, take the minibus that meets it and stay in one of the guesthouses of Valbona or the hamlet of Rragam at the trailhead; the pass can be walked in either direction, and Valbona to Theth is the easier ascent.

Visiting Valbona Valley National Park: what you will see

The park was created in 1996 and covers 80 square kilometres of the Valbona river valley in the Prokletije, the Accursed Mountains, on the Montenegrin border in the district of Tropoja, a valley of white limestone peaks rising to 2,600 metres above a floor of meadows, beech and pine forest and the river's stony bed, with the hamlets of Valbona, Dragobi and Rragam scattered along it in stone houses with wooden balconies; it is now part of the wider Albanian Alps national park. The Koman lake, a reservoir behind a dam in the Drin river gorge that the ferry threads for three hours between cliffs, is the approach and one of the finest boat trips in Europe. The Valbona pass trail climbs from Rragam through the forest and the meadows to the saddle at 1,800 metres in three to four hours, with the whole Theth valley and the Jezerca peaks in view from the top, and descends to Theth in two more;

the side trails go to the Kukaj valley, to the Xhema lake under the Kollata peaks and to the Maja e Rosit on the border, and the Peaks of the Balkans route passes through on its way to Montenegro and Kosovo. The forests hold brown bears, wolves, chamois, the Balkan lynx, the rarest cat in Europe, and the golden eagle, and the meadows in June are a garden of flowers. The valley's people are Catholic highlanders of the old clan society, the Kanun's laws and the blood feuds of Kadare's novels behind them, and the guesthouses serve the food of the mountains, with the Valbona trout, the corn bread and the honey; the river runs milky blue over white stones the length of the valley and is the coldest swim in Albania. The Alpine valley of Çerem and the Gashi river strict reserve, a World Heritage Site for its beech forests, lie beyond the park's northern edge.

Valbona Valley National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open at all times; the Koman ferry runs daily all year with more boats in summer, and the pass is walkable from about mid-May to October, with snow on the saddle outside that window. June and September are the best months, with flowers or colour, clear skies and the guesthouses with space; July and August are hot in the valley, busy on the trail and stormy in the afternoons;

winter brings deep snow and a closed pass, with the valley reached by the road and the guesthouses mostly shut. Start the pass early to be over the top before the heat and the cloud. Allow two nights for the crossing, three with a rest day. Shkodër is the base, Theth the other side, and Kosovo's Gjakova is the eastern road in.