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Looking down from a cliff top over turquoise water against a white limestone wall
Hostel on the HillAbove Filikuri · Himarë · Albanian Riviera

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The cove you can see and cannot easily reach

Filikuri sits about 370 metres from this door and sixty metres below it: white limestone straight out of the water, a short pebble strip, no road, no bar, nothing to rent.

—What is down there

Limestone, pebble, deep water

The cove is small — a hundred metres of pale pebble with rock walls closing it at both ends. The seabed shelves away quickly, which makes the water the colour it is in every photograph anyone has ever taken here, and also makes it a place for confident swimmers rather than for paddling toddlers.

There is no shade beyond what the north wall throws in the afternoon, no water, no food and nowhere to buy any. Whatever you want down there, you carry down or bring by boat.

Clear shallow water over pale pebbles at the edge of a cove, with a sheer white limestone cliff rising straight out of the sea behind it
At the waterline: pebble, then a limestone wall going straight up out of it.
—Three ways down, and one of them is not one

How to get there

  • By boat

    About 15 minutes from Himarë

    Water taxis run from the town beach through the season. This is how most people arrive, and it is the way we point guests.

  • By kayak

    15 to 30 minutes from Potami

    Flat water only, and only if you can read the forecast. Boards and kayaks are rented on the Potami and Himarë fronts.

  • On foot

    Not recommended

    The path along the ridge is straightforward; the last pitch onto the shingle is not. The rope that used to be fixed there has been taken down and a warning sign stands at the top. People have been badly hurt on it.

The ridge walk itself is worth doing on its own account. Follow the track up from the house, take the fork that keeps climbing, and stay on the path along the top — the cove opens up under you, and the best view of Filikuri is from up there anyway.

—If the sea is up

The alternatives

Looking down from a cliff top over turquoise and deep blue water against a white limestone wall, with scrub and yellow broom in the foreground
Looking straight down off the cliff path into the water below the house.

Filikuri faces open water and there are days when no boat is going anywhere near it. On those days the walkable answer is Potami, about 600 metres downhill from the door — shingle, loungers, a bar, and enough shelter to be usable when the cove is not.

Prinos is a kilometre north on the same road, and Spile and the town are 1.7 km. If you want the other famous cove on this stretch, Llamani is 1.4 km the other way, and Porto Palermo with its fortress on the spit is five and a half kilometres south.

Getting to the house in the first place

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