Vlorë is where the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea are said to meet, and that is the first thing a local will tell you, with some pride, even if the geographers are a little vague about exactly where the line falls. The town sits at the head of a wide bay, closed off to the west by the long mountainous arm of the Karaburun peninsula and the island of Sazan, and behind it the Llogara range stands up to well over two thousand metres. It is a big, busy, slightly chaotic place of nearly ninety thousand people, with a long seafront promenade of palms and cafes.
History is thick here. Albania declared its independence in Vlorë in November 1912, and the town still keeps that date as the centre of its identity, with a monument and a museum dedicated to it. Under Ottoman rule it was a trading port, and the great architect Sinan is credited with a mosque still standing in the centre, which tells you the place mattered. In the twentieth century it was a Cold War outpost, and Sazan island was a closed military zone for decades; the bay carries the traces of that era in rusting installations and concrete bunkers dotted across the hills.
For a rider, Vlorë is the true start of the coastal road, the SH8, which heads south over the Llogara Pass and down the so-called Albanian Riviera towards Himarë and Sarandë. Getting out of town is the only slow part; once the roundabouts and the shared taxis are behind you, the road climbs steadily through pine and fir to the pass, with the sea falling away below you in a hundred shades of blue. The surface has improved enormously in recent years but still deserves respect: patches, loose gravel in the bends, the occasional goat, and drivers who treat overtaking as a negotiation.
Fuel and food are easy here, which is exactly why a ride starts and ends in this town. Fill the tank before you leave, because south of Orikum the stations thin out, and there is a nice habit of breakfast at one of the seafront bakeries before the climb. Fish is the thing to eat in the evening, grilled and plain, with a cold local beer. Go in late spring or September, when the water is warm, the light is soft and the road is not yet jammed with summer traffic, and do the pass in the morning when the haze lifts off the sea.