For design
Green Coast Hotel
Palasë · Albania
Albania kept its coast to itself for a long time. Green Coast, above the beach at Palasë, is the first place on this stretch of the Ionian built to be looked at, and it earns the attention through its architecture rather than its address. Emre Arolat, the Istanbul architect, set the buildings into the hillside so they read as something quarried out of it: low horizontal courses of stone and timber the colour of the slope, arched openings framing the water. From the sea the hotel almost disappears into the rock. From a room it is all sky and blue, floor-to-ceiling glass onto a balcony, the mountains of the Llogara pass behind you and the beach below.
The kitchen looks to the ground it stands on. Olive oil comes from producers up the valley, byrek is filled with whatever the season is giving, and the cooking stays close to the Albanian south rather than reaching for an international menu. You eat with the sea in front of you. The hotel buys from the fishermen along this coast, and the plainer plates, a bowl of greens or grilled fish with good bread, are the ones we would order twice.
This is Albania's first hotel of real ambition, and it announces a coast that has been quiet since Julius Caesar came ashore near here in 48 BC and climbed into the mountains on the path that still carries his name. You can walk part of Caesar's Trail from the door. There is an infinity pool over the water and a spa spread across several floors, and at 131 rooms it is a large place, built alongside a wider resort. We will not pretend otherwise. Ask for a sea-facing room high on the slope, take the early swim before the beach fills, and the scale falls away. What stays is the building, and the view it was drawn to hold. For the wider story of the country climbing into view, see our field note from Gjirokastër.
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