A diamond-shaped city wedged between the Rozafa Citadel, the magnificent Albanian Alps, deep blue Lake Shkodra, a 30-kilometre sand beach and the serene Buna river delta reservation - Shkodra is a diamond in the rough with plenty of potential.
While many visitors quickly breeze though the city, Shkodra’s turbulent 2400-year history has left plenty of interesting relics that make a stay in Albania’s cultural capital worthwhile.
Hundreds of years of no-nonsense religious and ethnic tolerance resulted in booming trade, witnessed by Shkodra’s grand merchants’ homes, and dozens of mosques and Catholic and Orthodox churches standing in close proximity to each other. With travel to Albania now easier than ever before, and the number of visitors to Shkodra increasing, facilities for travellers are improving rapidly, with good hotels and several excellent restaurants now established.
The Shkodra In Your Pocket online and print city guide is the first of its kind, enabling foreign visitors to get the most out of Shkodra. The guide is published by Tirana In Your Pocket in association with the Municipality of Shkodra, under the programme Local selfgovernance, driving force for development, and in partnership with UCODEP (Unity and Cooperation for Development of People) and with the financial contribution of the Italian government, Tuscany Region and GTZ.
We welcome all comments about the guide; please write in to shkodra@inyourpocket.com with your praise, tips, corrections and complaints. Now, as the Shkodran poet Filip Shiroka wrote, “be off to Albania on your flight, off to Shkodra, my native town!”
Enjoy Shkodra.
Note to readers: Shkodra municipality has recently renamed most streets in the city. We'll update these in our guide shortly. The landmarks remain the same, so ask the locals for hotels and sights, rather than transient things like street names, when orientating.
One of Shkodra's most interesting success stories is the Venice Art mask factory. Founded by Edmond Angoni, a local who lived in Italy, it employs 60 people to manually make 20,000 masks per year usi
Read on
Latest Shkodra Comments
Shkodra City Songs Shkodra is my home city, it is beautiful and there is loads to visit and to do. I miss the people and everything in it, unfortunately I am married to an English man and I am living in the UK. Shkodra is surrounded by the Lake Shkodra and Drini River[...]
Venice Art mask factory I second Rob's comments. It's a singular experience to go and see where and how these masks are produced, and then to think about how, if you're buying papier mache masks in Venice, they were probably made here.[...]
Venice Art mask factory The mask factory is one of the coolest things to see in Shkodra. I lived there for two years and made it a point to bring visitors. The masks are the ones like in "Eyes Wide Shut" and the director is super nice, showing people around personally and [...]
Shkodra The lake of Shkodra is beautiful - I think that it is most beautiful in world.[...]
Shkodra I love shkodra people my boyfriend is from shkodra but he leaves in greece i am from greece and i am trying to learn albanian language thank[...]
Al-Zamil Mosque This information is wrong. This Mosque is Built by Sheikh Zamil Abdullah Al Zamil and it is still maintained by Al Zamil Family. Please note that no other people contributed for builting or maintenainng this mosque since it was built in 1995. we als[...]
Latest Shkodra Comments
Shkodra is my home city, it is beautiful and there is loads to visit and to do. I miss the people and everything in it, unfortunately I am married to an English man and I am living in the UK. Shkodra is surrounded by the Lake Shkodra and Drini River[...]
I second Rob's comments. It's a singular experience to go and see where and how these masks are produced, and then to think about how, if you're buying papier mache masks in Venice, they were probably made here.[...]
The mask factory is one of the coolest things to see in Shkodra. I lived there for two years and made it a point to bring visitors. The masks are the ones like in "Eyes Wide Shut" and the director is super nice, showing people around personally and [...]
The lake of Shkodra is beautiful - I think that it is most beautiful in world.[...]
I love shkodra people my boyfriend is from shkodra but he leaves in greece i am from greece and i am trying to learn albanian language thank[...]
Very nice.[...]
This information is wrong. This Mosque is Built by Sheikh Zamil Abdullah Al Zamil and it is still maintained by Al Zamil Family. Please note that no other people contributed for builting or maintenainng this mosque since it was built in 1995. we als[...]