The outdoor swimming pool at Hotel Frida in daylight, potted sago palms along the stone-clad wall behind it

Seasonal · free to guests

Twenty paces from the shallow end.

Name: Hotel Frida
Address: Rruga Himarë, Himara Park (at football fields), Himarë, Vlorë County, 9425, AL
Telephone: +355692753749
Rating: 8.6

The pool, the pool bar, the terrace and the dining room are all on the same level, which is why a day here tends not to involve going anywhere.

The pool

Open through the season, all ages.

Towels, loungers and umbrellas are set out on the terrace, and the pool is covered out of season. There is no charge for any of it — it is part of the stay.

A slide runs into the shallow end, the surround is paved rather than planted, and the straw parasols stand along the low wall that edges it.

Live rates on Booking.com

Hotel Frida from the air: the pool with its slide and straw parasols on the level below the building

The bar at Hotel Frida: arched backlit niches of bottles above a counter faced in mottled red and black

The bar and the table

Arches, bottles, backlight.

There is a bar at the pool and a bar indoors, and a restaurant that opens for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is added to a booking separately rather than carried by the room rate.

Outdoors there are barbecue facilities, garden furniture and the terrace tables, so a long evening does not have to move indoors at all.

The house

The rest of the building.

The facade, the roof sign at dusk, the balconies and their view over the neighbouring roofs, and the bathrooms — veined slab in some, grey marble tile in others.