Vlorë

Vlorë holds a specific place in Albanian national history as the site of the country's independence declaration from the Ottoman Empire on 28 November 1912, led by Ismail Qemali, whose provisional government formed here in the city's early 20th-century buildings. The Independence Monument, a large sculptural group overlooking Vlorë Bay, commemorates the event and remains one of the city's most visited civic landmarks, a straightforward stop for anyone interested in how modern Albania came to exist.

South of Vlorë, the coastal highway climbs the Llogara Pass through dense pine forest to over 1,000 metres, the road switchbacking sharply before descending in a rapid series of hairpin turns down to the Riviera towns of Dhërmi and Himara below — a transition from cool mountain air to the warm Ionian coast within a single drive, and one regularly cited among the most scenic road routes in the Balkans. Viewpoints along the pass give sweeping panoramas back over the Bay of Vlorë and out across the sea toward Italy on a clear day, and the road itself is as much a destination as the towns it connects.

The Karaburun Peninsula and Sazan Island, facing each other across a narrow strait at the mouth of the Bay of Vlorë, were a heavily fortified, closed military zone through most of the communist era and beyond, off-limits to the public and dotted with bunkers and gun emplacements built to guard the bay's approach. Reopened to visitors only in the past decade or so, the area now forms a marine national park, its clear water, sea caves and largely undeveloped coastline a direct consequence of the decades it spent inaccessible — boat trips from Vlorë now run out to explore the caves and coastline, giving visitors access to a stretch of coast most of Albania's own tourism development bypassed entirely.