Albania SH20 Kelmend Road

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Shkoder

   Shkodër is one of the oldest towns in Albania and the cultural capital of the north, a place where Catholic bell towers, mosques and Orthodox domes sit within a short walk of each other and bicycles outnumber cars in the old streets. It lies on a flat plain between the huge Lake Skadar, the largest lake in southern Europe, and the first foothills of the Albanian Alps, and the Buna river, a short, powerful stream, carries the lake's water to the Adriatic. Above the town stands Rozafa Castle on its rock, with views over both rivers and the lake. Legend says the walls kept collapsing until the builders agreed to wall up a woman alive, and the mother of a baby in the family agreed on the condition that one breast, one eye and one hand be left free to nurse the child.

   Read the complete Shkoder write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Shkoder is where the day begins. Next is Leqet e Hotit.

2. 2. Leqet e Hotit

   Past the border village of Hani i Hotit, the landscape of the Hoti region opens into a dry, stony country of low hills, olive trees and rocky ground, with the great wall of the Prokletije, the Accursed Mountains, rising to the north. This is Hoti land, the home of one of the old Albanian mountain tribes, whose people lived on both sides of what became the Albanian-Montenegrin frontier. The area is thinly populated, with scattered houses, stone walls and small plots of vines, and the name Leqet e Hotit, the Lakes of Hoti, belongs to the region as a whole more than to any single shore, and the wet months bring water to every hollow.

   Read the complete Leqet e Hotit write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Leqet e Hotit comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Tamare, mostly downhill.

3. 3. Tamarë

   Tamarë, or Tamara, is a village in the Hoti region on the Montenegrin side of the border with Albania, set in a landscape of dry limestone hills, vineyards and scrub, a short distance north of Skadar Lake. The people here are mostly ethnic Albanians, and the place feels like the northern Albanian country on the other side of the line, with the same stone houses, the same language and the same hospitality. The border has shaped life here for a century, and it is closer than it looks.

   Read the complete Tamare write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 85 km into the recorded legs you reach Tamare. Next is Vermosh.

4. 4. Vermosh

   Vermosh is where the road runs out of Albania. The last village in the Kelmend valley sits in a green bowl of meadows at around a thousand metres, ringed by steep limestone peaks of the Accursed Mountains, and the border with Montenegro is only a short distance away. The people here are Catholic highlanders, the Kelmendi, who have a reputation for fierce independence, and their stone houses, with small windows and thick walls, were built for defence as much as for shelter. Some old kulla towers still stand, a reminder of the days when blood feuds were governed by the Kanun, the ancient code of the mountains.

   Read the complete Vermosh write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Vermosh closes the day.