Hikes in Theth That Aren’t the Valbona Pass

After completing the majestic Valbona Pass hike, we decided to stay a couple of extra days in Theth before taking the bus back to Shkoder. Theth is a cute village, slightly bigger than Valbona. You still won’t find a grocery store here, or an ATM. But hey, it has the important stuff.

There are a couple of hikes you can do from Theth that don’t involve booking it back to Valbona. One is a relatively short hike to the Grunas Waterfall.

And the other is the longer but (IMO) more rewarding hike to the Blue Eye.

The waterfall is less than an hour from downtown Theth. This hike offers plenty of beautiful mountain views, as well as a very photogenic church.

As always, the accessibility of sights like this is a double-edged sword. You can get some great photos, but you’ve gotta wait in line.

The next day, we set out earlier for the Blue Eye hike, and largely had the trail to ourselves. Much of which was actually paved, as Theth has recently installed some new roads. Once again, the signs of increased tourism are everywhere in Albania.

These horses eating from a dumpster have gotta be one of the top five weirdest things I’ve ever seen.

Once you reach the unpaved trail, you’re less than an hour from the Blue Eye.

And here it is in all its Blue Eye glory!

James had the courage to take a dip in the freezing water.

As we continued to wander around and over the Blue Eye, we encountered a very sketchy-looking bridge. I noped right out of that one. James, of course, did no such thing.

I swear, the fall colors were appearing in real time during this hike. The left photo is on our way to the Blue Eye, the right photo is on our way back.

Colooooors! I’m living for it.

The way back to Theth was hot, and further than I remembered. Just when I was thinking that it’d be great to have a teleporter, a guy in a truck pulled over, invited us to hop in, and drove us the rest of the way back to town. I’m gonna miss that Albanian hospitality!