Komani lake
Komani Lake
Published on 08/09/2025
It was a dark, cold night and it was silent outside. The clock said 04:00 (am) and a phone rang in the distance. It was Elio, our taxi driver, asking where we were. He was half an hour too early. Okay I’m lying it wasn’t cold at all outside as it is freaking hot in summer in Albania. Anyway, we are heading to Komani Lake and we got instructions to be at ‘the’ bus stop at 05:00 in the morning. We had no clue what bus stop this was, Google Maps had no clue, I’m not even sure the bus company had a clue. Luckily, when we said to Elio that we had to go to Komani Lake bus stop, he knew exactly where to drop us off. And indeed a bus was waiting for us to head to Komani Lake.
Getting tickets for the bus was a bit tricky as you were not able to book them online. Or you were, but only for the way to Komani Lake and if you were going with a certain travel company. We did not go with the travel company, but we were able to buy ticket anyway. I cannot give you more information, I’m sorry, my friend booked the tickets and we just went along. We were definitely not able to buy bus tickets for the way back to Shköder, but we asked our accommodation via e-mail and they said we would be fine, so we believed it.
noëlle
Hi! I am Noëlle and I wrote this article for you!!! Hopefully, you like reading this article and find my tips and struggles helpful. Also, ignore the grammar and spelling mistakes; I did not proofread it. I absolutely loved Albania and hope you will have the most amazing trip too! :)
Getting to the bus
Getting to the harbour
The bus took three hours and would drop us off at the harbour. In some sense, I am very glad we took the bus rather than our own car, because this was the worst road I have ever driven on in my life. I said the road in Himare to our hotel was bad, but this was times three. The whole trip would not have taken three hours if this road was not that bad. It was a genuine rollercoaster. After having survived this trip we arrived at a parking spot and a tunnel. To make the trip even worse, the bus driver told us to get out and we had to WALK through the tunnel. (No, I’m exaggerating, this whole trip was fine and what a great service that a bus is able to bring you all the way to this harbour). The walk to the tunnel takes around 15 minutes and a lot of people are walking. We also read beforehand that sometimes cars are not allowed to go into the tunnel as there is no space to turn the car around at the end of the tunnel, so we were prepared for the walk. Also I added an ugly picture of the tunnel to show what it looks like.
When we got to the end of the tunnel, we were rewarded with the most amazing view ever. The harbour is the epitome of organized chaos. There are boats and cars lined up everwhere, a lot of people are waiting until their boat shows up at the cafe, there is a bus that is taking people back to Tirana or Shkoder, people are shouting who has to go on what boat and everyone gets exactly where they have to be. Our boat left at 10:00, so after having an ice cream and looking at all the people searching for their boat, we were ready to board. We heard someone call our accommodation, and they had a list of all their guests' names. They also waited until everyone had arrived, so they would not suddenly leave without you.
Getting to the accommodation
On Komani Lake, there are no supermarkets whatsoever, so every time they go with the boat to the harbour, they also collect groceries. After no joke 100 bottles of water were loaded on the boat, we made our way to the accommodation. Guys, only for this boat ride it is worth taking a trip to Komani Lake. This was absolutely beautiful. I was incredibly amazed by how stunning it was. Usually I would always recommend finishing a trip with the beach towns, but I am so glad that we did this near the end, because nothing would have topped this. The entire boat ride took around an hour and you are sailing through beautiful, majestic mountains. Halfway through the boat ride, we stopped at a restaurant. This was incredibly random. We had no clue why you would have a restaurant here; the only people that get here are the ones that are staying at one of the accommodations at the lake. Anyway, it was nice to see and we were able to go to the toilet.
After sailing a bit further, we arrived at our accommodation. From the water, it already looked beautiful and when we stood in the accommodation itself, the views were amazing (props to the header of this article). Luckily we were able to get into our room immediately, so after we dropped our bags we explored the accommodation. They have a big terrace that looks out over the lake. Through a small suspension bridge you can get to a raft and that is where we decided to chill.
Getting to Lumi I Shales
At 14:00, a boat from the accommodation left to go to the Lumi I Shales River. At the riiver there are much more hotels and restaurants and it feels like a little village. We decided to rent two beach chairs and spend the rest of our time chilling there. The water was the clearest water I had ever seen and extremely cold. That did not stop us from having a whole photoshoot in the water. Around 18:00, the boat came to pick us up again. We took a shower and had dinner at the accommodation, which was really nice and peaceful (minus the wasps). Then it was time for bed. What an amazing location this is.
Getting out of bed
Around 08:00 we woke up and went to the raft again to have a morning swim. I think we had to check out around 10:00, so we had breakfast and checked out. Our boat to the harbour left around 15:00, so we still had a few hours to spare. I decided to chill in a hammock and my friend went swimming again at the raft.
Getting to Shkoder
Okay we were a little bit scared of how we were going to get to Shkoder as we could not buy bus tickets online and there was only one bus going at 16:00 I believe. However, our hosts did not have any stress, so we tried to not have any stress. This failed, we were very stressed because no way that we would arrive at 16:00 at the harbour. And indeed we arrived to late. HOWEVER, we should not have had any stress because when we arrived the bus driver waited for us and took us to the bus. Amazing, our hosts called beforehand that we were coming!! When we were stationed in the bus we even had to wait for an extra hour because other passengers had not arrived yet. Moral of the story: if the Albanians say to not have stress, do not have stress (for some reason this has happened so often and we keep not believing it).
And then the bus left to Shkoder and that concludes our trip to Komani Lake. This was BY FAR the highlight of our Albania trip. It was the most beautiful place I have ever been to and extremely unique and surprising. I recommend everyone to go here and I definitely hope you will too!