A castle on a hill, a string of beaches below, and a coastline that feels like Greece thirty years ago.
Himarë sits on the Ionian coast between Sarandë and Vlorë, where the mountains drop straight into the sea and the beaches are pebbled, not sandy. It is quieter than Sarandë, less developed than Ksamil, and increasingly popular with travellers who want the Mediterranean without the crowds.
The old town climbs a hillside below a Venetian castle — Himara Castle — with views that stretch from Corfu to the Ceraunian Mountains. Below are a series of beaches: Livadh (the longest), Jale (the prettiest), Gjipe (the most remote, accessible only by boat or a rough path). The water is the same turquoise as further south, but the restaurants are cheaper and the pace is slower.
Himarë is not polished. The road in is winding, the town has a working-port feel, and some of the best beaches require effort. But that is precisely why people come. This is the Albania that existed before Instagram — fishermen mending nets, grandmothers selling honey by the road, and sunsets that need no filter.
Himare carries both Albanian and Greek-speaking history, with the old village above the bay and beach life below. The best visit uses both layers instead of staying only on the waterfront.
Himarë and the seven villages around it are the heart of the Albanian Greek-speaking minority — a community that has been here for at least 2,500 years, was repeatedly autonomous under Ottoman rule, and has never been entirely one thing. The hillside castles you see from the road are not decorative; they are the visible record of how often this stretch of coast had to defend itself.
Himarë sits roughly where the ancient settlement of Chimaera stood — a Greek colony on a defensible bluff, named after the mythological fire-breathing beast (and giving its name to the surrounding Ceraunian, "thunder-struck," mountains). The Greeks brought olive cultivation; the Romans built the road that the SH8 still roughly follows. The old town climbing the hill above the modern resort area still has Greek street signs in places, alongside the Albanian.
Himarë is the largest of seven Greek-speaking villages strung along this coast: Himarë, Dhërmi, Palasë, Ilias, Vuno, Qeparo, and Kudhës. The villages have been linguistically and culturally Greek for as long as historical record goes, even as Greek and Albanian identities have remained complicated and intertwined for the families who live in them. Most older residents are fluent in both languages; most younger ones now also speak Italian and English. The community runs Greek schools, Orthodox churches, and a quietly distinctive cuisine — heavier on olive oil and lemon, lighter on the Ottoman influences visible in central Albania.
Ali Pasha of Yanina ruled most of southern Albania and northwestern Greece between 1788 and 1822 as an Ottoman vassal who behaved like an independent prince. He fought a series of campaigns to bring Himarë and the seven villages under direct rule, and built the chain of small coastal castles you still see — Porto Palermo (his most ambitious, a triangular fortress on a peninsula), Borsh (the much-older Sopot fortress, which he restored), and watchtowers at intervals along the coast. The British envoy William Martin Leake described Ali Pasha as charming and terrifying in roughly equal measure; both descriptions fit the castles he left behind.
When borders opened in 1991, a significant share of the Greek-speaking community emigrated to Greece — formally as repatriating Greeks under Greek law, in practice as economic migrants. Whole villages emptied. Twenty-five years later many have returned seasonally; some have come back permanently and reopened the family kafenia and oil presses. The current Himarë is partly a tourist town and partly a community gradually reclaiming itself, with all the contradictions that involves.
Himarë is the easiest place on the Riviera to walk into a 200-year-old kafeneio, drink an espresso for one euro, and have a conversation in three languages. The castle on the hill above town is free to wander; the views are absurd. The seven-villages walking trail (a couple of hours between Vuno and Qeparo) gives a sense of why this coast was worth defending. Bring water and shoes.
Most of the Albanian coast is being built fast. Himarë is being rebuilt slowly — which makes a different kind of place.
The Llogara Pass is the highlight — dramatic switchbacks with views over the Ionian Sea. Buses run twice daily in summer. A taxi is around €120.
A straightforward coastal drive on the SH8. Buses are frequent. Consider stopping at the Blue Eye or Borsh beach on the way.
