Valbona, Albania is most certainly one of the most beautiful, quiet and peaceful places I may have ever encountered and this means a lot, having been to both the Rockies and the Alps. The remoteness and backwards nature of the valley that I loved is almost certainly also the cause of low tourism to the area. This is in my eyes not only because of the generally low amount of visitors to the Albanian Alps, but also because of how hard it is to reach the area. There are no roads connecting Valbona to Teth, which is much more touristy, has more infrastructure and is connected via a paved road to Shkodra, on which buses run everyday to bring hikers in and out of the valley. Valbona on the other hand has only two options of getting there, either hiking from Teth or taking the Koman ferry, and both require basically an entire day to reach the valley from Shkodra or Tirana. This is not to say that you should just settle for Teth, when visiting the Mountains, as Valbona is much more beautiful in my opinion, not only because its far larger and more remote, but also because of the amount of breathtaking hikes one can take on here. My way into the valley was also via hiking. After staying in Teth for a couple of nights, I decided to cross over to Valbona. This is probably the most popular route in the entire national park, but dont be afraid, it is still not as crowded as you may imagine. The starting point is near the main supermarket in Teth and you steadily climb from around 700m in the valley up to 1800m at Valbona pass. The trail starts up steep through forests and meadows and offers breathtaking views of the valley below. At around 1500m you will encounter a nice café offering drinks and snacks, which is well visited by hikers. It is also the only place to get food before your guest house in Valbona so make sure to take a break there and enjoy some nice last views of Teth. After reaching the pass the trail continues down the mountain, but much less steep as Valbona is a large valley formed by glaciers with less rugged and steep inclines. At some point you will start to see the first houses at around 1400m and think you almost made it. But dont be fooled it is around 8 more kilometers to where most of the guest houses are situated. It is nonotheless worth taking a short detour to the waterfall (marked by a large wooden sign with „Ujevara“ written on it, which means waterfall in albanian). Although the climb up is rather arduous, when reaching the waterfall you get a picturesque view of the valley. I used the opportunity to take a dive in the cold water. Continuing on you will walk through a dry riverbed of white stones and occasional houses and herds of cows grazing on the fields adjacent to the river will pass by. The views of the surrounding mountains are absolutely jaw-dropping and can compete with the views of postcards of Lake Louise or the Matterhorn. In the end it comes down to the lack of people around. Untouched nature as far as the eye can see. After about 27km and 1400m in altitude change, I finally reached my guest house and layed back for the day.