16/09/2026
🇦🇱 LAKE KOMANI — AN UNEXPECTED STOP
After visiting Shkodër, we still had half a day left.
While having lunch, I was thinking… 🤔
Where should we go next?
I wanted to visit Theth, which many people said was very beautiful. But it was quite far to the north, and the next day we were planning to enter Kosovo.
I actually had Lake Komani in my plan. I wanted to take the ferry from Komani to Fierza, bring our rental car on the ferry, and then continue driving towards the Kosovo border.
I had already asked the rental car company, and they said it was okay to take the car on the ferry.
So I tried to buy the ferry ticket online.
But I couldn’t complete the payment.
I then called the phone number on the website.
The ferry operator kept saying:
“No car… no car…”
The person on the phone didn’t speak much English, so I didn’t really understand what he meant. 😅
Since we didn’t know where else to go, we finally decided:
“Let’s just go to Lake Komani and have a look.” 😂
So off we went.
But the last 23 km to the ferry terminal was really bad.
Most of the road was unpaved and very challenging to drive.
Still, the scenery along the way was beautiful.
Alhamdulillah, before sunset, we finally arrived at our accommodation, about 4 km from the ferry terminal.
I asked the hotel owner about the ferry.
That was when everything became clear.
He told us that the water level was quite low at that time, so the large ferry that could carry cars had been temporarily stopped.
It would only operate again when the water level was suitable, around the following summer.
Ahhh… now I understood why the ferry operator kept saying “no car… no car…”! 😂
At that time, only the smaller passenger ferry was operating.
There were also small sightseeing boats that took passengers around the lake for about an hour before returning to the Komani terminal.
The next morning, while we were checking out, we saw several tourist buses and vans stopping at our hotel.
I was quite surprised.
I didn’t expect so many tourists to come here!
Even big buses could reach this area despite the poor road conditions.
After checking out, we drove to the ferry terminal just to have a look and take some photos.
From the hotel, we had to drive through a tunnel before reaching the terminal.
There was only a small parking area there.
We parked for a short while just to take some pictures and were charged €2 for parking.
Before coming here, I had done some research.
Normally, the ferry from Komani to Fierza takes around 2 hours.
People say the canyon views along the journey are amazing.
The ferry is also a pop**ar shortcut for travellers going from Komani to Valbona Valley, and then towards the Kosovo border in northern Albania.
From my research, the fare was around €92 for 4 passengers with a car.
It would have been a really interesting journey. 🚢🚗
But unfortunately, we couldn’t take the car on the ferry.
So now we had another question…
If we didn’t take the shortcut through Lake Komani, which road would we use to get to Kosovo? 🤔
Where did the non-shortcut road take us?
I’ll share that story next…
🇦🇱➡️🇽🇰
To be continued… 😄
