Brrari Mountain, traveling for less than 2 dollars

We often hear from the young generation that there isn’t much to do in Tirane. Or that organising a short trip out of the city is expensive. All of those excuses are not true. There are a lot of beautiful places in the rural parts of Tirana and reaching them is quite cheap.

Brrari mountain and the village with the same name is one of those areas you can reach easily if you are a fan of nature and hiking. Brrari mountain is located 17 kilometres away from Tirana. To follow the trail of hiking you need to reach the village with the same name: Brrari village. The town can be reached easily by public transportation. The bus that takes you to the village is Tufina’s bus. You can take the bus at any bus stop such as ‘Nenkatshet bus station’ or ‘Selvia’s bus station’. The buses leave every ten minutes, so time is not essential. However, it is recommended starting your trip early so you can get the best view and not miss anything. The ticket costs 40 leke. The last bus station will be your destination. Travelling from Tirana until there will take up thirty minutes as a maximum.

You will know you are in the right place when you see a small coffee shop. In case you missed your cup of coffee because of the early morning you can have one there. There is also a small bakery in case you lost your morning too, or you can do it like any e other hiker and pack your meals with you. Besides the meals, a critical thing about starting this trip is the shoes. It would be best if you had proper hiking shoes because the road and the trail are not in their best conditions. A hiking jacket is important too, in case it gets chilly in the afternoon. If you are a beginner of hiking, you might also consider bringing a hiking stick so the hike can be more pleasant. 

The road that takes you to the village is quite dirty at the beginning. After you leave the big trucks’ drive in 20 minutes starts the real road village. The village is built in a hill so basically you will start hiking from there. There is only a main road that goes through the village, so it is hard to get confused. Even if you do by the middle of it, you will find a big board, with the map of the trail and how you can reach “Brrari Mountain”, “Preske e Vogel” etc. You can always ask the locals since they happen to be very friendly. While climbing up to the top of the village, you can see different animals such as sheep, chickens, bees, goats etc. You also notice different plants, but the most famous and tasty is ‘mare’. It looks like a blackberry, but it is bigger, and it tastes a lot different.

In 15 minutes of walking, you can notice the end of the village and the beginning of the hiking. There are two ways or even more to reach the mountain. My favourite is going through the village and avoiding the dust of the other car’s road. The hike is of the intermediate level. In the beginning, there are not many plants or trees, but you will notice more of them during the way up. There are not any hiking signs so the best would be having someone who has made the same trail before to guide you. Even as a first try, I think it would be hard to confuse. Within 40 Minutes of climbing, you will reach a beautiful field. In there you can have a deserved break and enjoy the fantastic view. You can see Tirana, but most importantly enjoy the light of the mountains around you. The air is fresh, full of plants (mare) which turns it in a perfect spot for a lovely picnic. You can stay there, enjoying the view and take some magic pictures. Playing different games or just dancing would be a perfect solution too.

The trail of hiking continues furthermore for around 50 minutes. Hiking the rest of it is quite hard since there are a lot of bushes and you can get easily lost. In case you do not have someone to guide you up to the mountain just stick to exploring the area around since there are a lot of things to see and capture. To go back home, you need to follow the same advice, but backwards. To have this amazing experience, all you have to spend is less than 2$ and plenty of energy.