Kamping Lakosa

The local town of Rrëshen (five minutes’ drive) is a lively spot with one of Albania’s largest cathedrals, a red-brick minimalist edifice completed in 2002. Daily life revolves around the labyrinthine Old Bazaar, where you can source Albanian crafts like filigree jewellery, brightly patterned rugs or blankets, and delicate lace tablecloths. A number of restaurants dot the streets, alongside a couple of wine bars selling the local fruit brandy version of raki. The countryside around Rrëshen is a hub for hiking, mountain biking and horse riding. You can also fish and go whitewater rafting on the Drin River (five minutes), go yomping along forested trails or kayak around the turquoise lake in the Ulza Regional Nature Park (55 minutes). For a powerful insight into Albania as a communist country under dictator Enver Hoxha, take a free tour of the daunting, concrete Spaç Prison (40 minutes), a former labour camp set among remote mountainous countryside. Although it is now half ruined, you can still make out graffiti in the tiny cells from which political prisoners were forced to work in the copper mine nearby.