Day 3 - Transfer to Durres, Hotel Lubjana and Spiranca

Day 3 in Albania started at the Hotel Vila e Arte with a nice breakfast, then checking out and grabbing a cab to the Regional Bus Terminal North and South Albania (Terminali i Autobusave tė Jugut dhe Veriut).

Transfer to Durrės

I had noticed that there seemed to be a lot of taxis hanging around on the streets around the hotel, so didn’t book anything in advance, and just headed out to grab the first cab we came across. This was again done by an agreement on a flat-fare before leaving, and agreeing a fare of 2000 LEK (€20) we set off. Traffic was busy, but we wound up at the bus station about 30 minutes after leaving the centre of Tirana.

The bus station itself is currently just a large open parking lot with lots of buses with signs in their windows. There is a sign when you come in to indicate where the buses to certain destinations are parked. Our bus to Durrės was in bay 2, right by the entrance.

The bus to Durrės is a nice coach. You board the bus, and only pay for your tickets after you have gotten underway. The cost for a single from Tirana to Durrės was 180 LEK (€1.80) for what would be a 30 minute trip if it wasn’t for the traffic, but wound up being closer to 50 minutes.






The coach arrives in Durrės near the city centre, alongside the port. We were staying at Durrės Beach, which was about a 10 minute taxi ride away. It’s not far, but due to the motorway, a very convoluted walk, and with temperatures around 35 C (95F), we decided a cab would be wise. 1500 LEK (€15) and 15 minutes later, we arrived at our hotel.

The rooms weren’t yet ready, so we dropped our bags and went out on a little wander down the beach promenade. I’ll do a Durrės recap in the next entry to cover what we saw in our two days here.

At 2PM, we headed back to the hotel to check in.

Hotel Lubjana

I had booked the Hotel Lubjana on the main road running parallel to the beach. At £187 for two nights for a 3 person room (1 double and 1 single bed), it seemed a good deal. I was very surprised when I arrived how nice it was. I wasn’t expecting to get a private balcony with a sea view for that price.

All the standards once would expect – air conditioning, nice clean and functioning bathroom (with a rain forest shower), free WiFi, and free breakfast.


Hotel Exterior


Double and single bed. We flipped a coin to see who got which, and I wound up in the single.


Desk and TV – included a number of channels showing shows and movies in English with Albanian subtitles.


Wardrobe, with slippers and a safe


Balcony with a partial sea-view, and overlooking the small fun-fair across the street.


Bathroom – the one complaint I had with this room is that there is nothing stopping water from the shower to ingress into the main area of the bathroom, meaning that your feet get wet if you go to the toilet after someone else has showered. However, the slippers came in handy here for keeping my feet dry, and with the heat outside (no AC in the bathroom itself), it dried up pretty quickly.






Buffet breakfast.

All in all, a lovely hotel, well positioned for the beach and good value.

Spiranca Restaurant

Finally at the seaside, I was definitely craving some seafood. Some searches online landed us on a well rated restaurant that was almost directly across the street from our hotel – Spiranca (Trip Advisor reviews)

We arrived pretty early for European dining times – around 7PM, and were quickly seated inside in the air conditioned space. The interior is nice enough if somewhat bland, though there are some interesting knick-knacks on the walls, including this barometer, which I took a picture of as my father loved barometers.


I started by ordering some wine for myself (Dennis doesn’t drink). I found in general wine by the glass hard to come by in Albania (at least the places we went), and the smallest they had was a 500ml of the house wine. I plumbed for that, and it was served it a serving vessel that looked like a really big glass of wine. Amusing. The wine was “home made” they said, which I did worry might lead to blindness, but it was fine. Nothing impressive, but not offensive. An easy drinking wine to not detract from the seafood to come.



We then received a complimentary amuse-bouche of bruschette with fish roe cream and tomatoes. As a starter I had the creamy fish soup. It was good, but could have used a bit more seasoning to give it some bite. There were a few sizeable chunks of white fish in there though, which is nice to see in a fish soup (rather than just some random strands).



As my main, I went for the grilled sea bream. Presented as the whole fish, it was delicious, even if it did mean contending with a number of small little bones. I did manage to get out most of the bones in a single go – which reminded me of all the times Slyvester the Cat wound up with a meal of just the fish bones.





We closed the meal by sharing a tiramsu and local cake.

All together, the bill came to 6000 Lek. It was the best seafood I had while in Albania, and one of the best meals I had while there, so I felt it was worth the price.

A Wander and A Sit-down

We ended the evening with another stroll down the seafront promenade, a couple drinks at a beach-front bar, and then back to the hotel to sit on the balcony with a couple cans of beer and watch the excitement of the fun fair across the road.