How locals and tourists are reviving the hiking resort of Theth

2023-11-03 13:12:00

If you want to reach the white peaks of Albania, you have to wind your way along narrow paths. Only a small road leads into the mountains in the north of the country. From above you can see the Shala Valley, which spreads out like a green carpet and at the upper end of which lies the village of Theth. Many hikers come through the town or start here on the “Peaks of the Balkans”, a long-distance hiking trail in the border triangle of Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo.

Albania is no longer an insider tip as a holiday destination. The Balkan country, which suffered under a dictatorship until the end of the last century and then slipped into civil war, still has broken roads everywhere today, but beyond that: wide beaches, old cities and high mountains. The Riviera in particular is attracting more and more tourists. Travelers also discover the more remote regions of the country – this includes Theth in northern Albania.

Pavlin Polia sits on a bench in front of his guest house with a coffee and alternately looks at his watch and at the sky. It’s raining cats and dogs. In a few hours he wants to pick up a tour group from the Netherlands in the nearest larger city, Shkodra. Forty-three year old Polia is a quiet person. He has a long dark beard. His eyes have probably already seen every stick and stone in the area.

“Tourism gives us the opportunity to be here again,” says Polia. When he went to school in Theth, there were still 320 children in twelve classes, he remembers. Then communism ended in the early 1990s. More than a million people have left the country, 700,000 in the past ten years alone. Others moved to the cities. But almost no one remained in Theth and the village almost died out. Polia also went abroad. The Albanian was away for nine years until he became a tourist guide in his home village. Polia says that people are now finding their old traditions again. He calls it “lifestyle in the village”. 35 families have returned, and in the summer more than 100 families live in Theth. In 2011, the then German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) supported him in developing tourism infrastructure. “This was one of the best projects in this region,” he says. He converted his parents’ house into accommodation and helped signpost the long-distance hiking trail. “The people here were very skeptical at the beginning. Who goes hiking for ten days?” people asked him. Then he tells an anecdote:

What are you doing here?

“When the first tourists came, my parents’ generation asked: ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘We are walking to Valbona,’ said the travelers. ‘Why, what’s happening?’ ‘We’re on holiday here,’ was the answer. ‘Who pays you to do this?’ ‘No, we pay for it.'”

Bliss: This is what it looks like when love is celebrated in Albania. : Image: Martin Franke

Polia says that people worked hard under communism, especially in the mountains. For her it was unbelievable that people came here to hike and spent money on it. But times are changing in Theth too. At the entrance to the town there is an overpriced supermarket with prices like those on a remote South Sea island, a pizzeria, restaurants and a tourist information center. Theth has no real town center, it is a scattered settlement. Most of the houses – traditionally built with dry stone walls – are far apart, separated by fences.