After the first apartment didn’t work out, we moved to a high-rise on Rruga e Dibrës and everything clicked. Six weeks became three and a half months, because we kept extending. Same apartment. Same view. Same coffee spot downstairs. We just couldn’t come up with a good reason to leave.
Finding a long-stay apartment on Tirana’s Rruga e Dibrës
A high-rise apartment with a proper terrace, big windows, and a view over Tirana that made every morning worth waking up for. Modern, quiet, well-built, and cheap enough that we couldn’t quite believe the price. This was the Tirana apartment we wished we’d started with.
Rruga e Dibrës is one of Tirana’s main arteries. A mix of newer high-rises and older buildings, walking distance to the Grand Park and a short trip on foot or by taxi to Blloku. Real Tirana, not the tourist Tirana. Neighbors we recognized. A grocery store where the woman at the register knew our order. The kind of long-stay setup you dream about.
Living on Rruga e Dibrës across two seasons
We arrived in the spring and left at the height of summer. Same apartment, two very different versions of Tirana.
Spring meant the color festival (more fun than a kid with a box of crayons) and our 12th anniversary right in the middle of it. Tirana has a habit of randomly unscheduled fireworks displays: midnight on a Monday, Saturday at sunset, and not dinky bottle rockets. Real fireworks, for no other reason than someone wanted to.
By month two we knew which cafés had the best wifi, which had the best light, which had the best coffee. We knew the byrektore that opened at 6 AM. We knew which supermarket had the best produce. That’s when a place stops being a stay and starts being a life.
Then summer hit and Blloku changed personality. Terraces packed. People eating outside until midnight. Long lunches. Everyone moving like the heat was a suggestion. August is also when a lot of Tiranians leave for the coast (Ksamil, Sarandë, Vlorë) and the city empties out just enough to feel like it’s yours.
The Albanian weather forecast is a work of fiction. Never right. We learned to just look out the window.
A typical day on Rruga e Dibrës
Spring: Coffee on the terrace. Walk through the Grand Park. Work from the apartment. Long lunch at a nearby place. Dinner out with new friends, home by midnight.
Summer: Coffee early, before it got hot. Work in the morning. Lunch at whatever nearby place had shade and a fan. Afternoons: nothing productive, ever. Evenings when the temperature dropped. Walks, dinner, more coffee, more walking. Bed late.
Weekends we hit the Albanian coast properly. Ksamil for beach days (crystal water, close to Greece). Sarandë for a stop. Long slow dinners that ran past midnight.
Tirana: our verdict after 3.5 months in the same apartment
By month three we understood why people move to Tirana. The pace, the price, the warmth of the people. There’s a version of your life you could live here for a lot less than you’re currently paying elsewhere. That’s not marketing. That’s math.
Four total months in Tirana across two apartments taught us something specific: Albania is where Europe was five years ago in terms of price, and where Europe is going in terms of quality. Get here before that gap closes.
If you’re considering a long stay somewhere in Europe that costs less than half of what Western capitals charge, Tirana is on the shortlist. Probably at the top.
Tirana long-stay stats
- Duration: Three and a half months, spring into summer (extended twice)
- Neighborhood: Rruga e Dibrës, near central Tirana
- Cost tier: Very affordable
- Walkability: Excellent
- Wifi: Fast and reliable
- Cat-friendly: Yes
- Best for: Extended stays, remote workers, anniversaries, summer people, Europeans-in-training
- Would return: Yes, absolutely. This is the apartment we’d rebook.
Book the stay: Our Rruga e Dibrës apartment on Airbnb →
