But the single most significant thing about the Vjosa is that it is wild, its free-flowing ecosystem intact from source to sea — something unheard of in Europe, where most rivers were dammed, channelled and straightened decades ago. Consequently, the Vjosa supports a complex web of life. More than 1,100 species have been identified to date, with 15 on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, including the Egyptian vulture, Eurasian otter and the critically endangered European eel.

In a tiny mountain village high above a tributary of the Vjosa River, I bite into a vibrant orange persimmon. Just picked from a tree laden with ripe fruit, it’s sweet and refreshing with a hint of cinnamon spiciness.

It’s evening, and as the sun drops behind the mountain top, a bright halfmoon rises, illuminating the patio of Murat Keraj, a sculptor, farmer and folklorist — and one of the many people behind the creation of the new Vjosa Wild River National Park. Keraj has invited me to his home to learn about the park and what it means for people in Zhulat, a village of 200. As he talks, he showers me with the hospitality for which Albanians are famous.

First, Keraj presents us with small saucers of honey, to be savoured by the spoonful, courtesy of the bees from his 200 hives. The bees feed primarily on rosemary, imparting the honey with an exquisite, slightly floral essence. “The whole mountain becomes white like snow when it blossoms,” he tells me.

Next, he brings out a bottle of red wine he makes from a sweet and fragrant black grape known here as American. There’s also a bottle of raki, the twice-distilled fruit brandy that no home in this Balkan country is without.

Such delicacies shouldn’t be taken for granted. They’re a product, either directly or indirectly, of the Vjosa River. In a region where summer temperatures routinely hit 45 C, villagers depend on the natural flow of the river to sustain them and their 4,000 cows, sheep and goats, as well as their beehives and crops. It therefore comes as no surprise that citizens were fearful when in 2015 the government announced plans to build six power generating dams on the Kardhiq, a major tributary of the Vjosa. “It was a terrible idea,” Keraj says. “Water is life in my village.”

“The communists could have done a better job,” mutters Bled sarcastically while looking over a narrow section of turquoise river studded with white boulders. A large hydro power line built by the former Communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha mars what would have been a picture-perfect scene. Nonetheless, the Vjosa remains alluringly beautiful. Green fields trim turquoise water with mountains rising on either side. Small towns such as the city of Përmet dot the river, their waterside cafés serving coffee and gliko, a sweet preserve typically made with fruit, though here this speciality is made using unripened walnuts and syrup flavoured with geranium flowers. We spend the night just 35 kilometres from the Greek border in the village of Leusë, whose St. Mary’s Church dazzles visitors with rich frescoes painted more than 200 years ago. 

Even before Vjosa Wild River National Park was announced, Përmet was the recreational centre of the region and popular with international visitors. The next day, we raft a section of narrow river replete with twists and turns. In spring, this would be an adrenaline-filled ride with Class III rapids and near-metre high waves. By October, water levels drop and the current is gentle enough in most places that you can safely take your eyes off the river to look for wild figs growing along the riverbank or follow the sound of the sheeps’ bells as the animals graze non-chalantly above it.  

Still, there are thrills to be had. We stop at the halfway point of our two-hour adventure to climb a rocky outcropping and jump eight metres into the clear water below. Irma Tako, owner of rafting operator Vjosa Explorer, is waiting on the opposite shore with fresh fruit and tea that she makes from linden, ironwort, sage and other wildflowers and herbs gathered in the mountains. Tako founded the company after a wave of emigration saw the region lose many of its young people to places like England, Germany, France and Italy. Keen to create jobs and give locals a reason to stay, she now employs a group of 10 to 12 young men who have no plans to leave the valley that raised them. 

This is a valley layered with history and culture. Take a bike ride through town on what’s called the old Italian road, laid by Italian troops with plans to invade Greece during the Second World War, and these layers start to reveal themselves. Their abandoned barracks are still here, too, one with a quote from Mussolini stencilled on an inside wall commending the Italian infantry for their heroism. “A decisive element of battles and war,” reads Bled, straining to make out the weathered print. “Today like yesterday, tomorrow like today and always. Something like that.” 

Returning to Përmet, we stop at Ferma Sali, a honey farm overlooking the Vjosa, where owner Flora Sali is bottling the last of her summer’s production. The sheer scale of the biodiversity fed by this river is beginning to reveal itself in the bounty of unique products available to eat and drink. As if to emphasize this point, Sali brings out her speciality — a heavenly honey made from the bedunica flower, which grows in the mountains of southern Albania only at an altitude above 3,300 metres. Locals prize it as both food and medicine, often adding it to mountain tea in winter to prevent or clear coughs and colds. But even though it’s highly valued, few families produce this particular honey anymore because the flowers are so hard to reach. This led to the flower’s recent inclusion in the Ark of Taste, an online catalogue created by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity to recognize food products the world is at risk of losing. 

Next, Sali brings out a bottle of her family’s version of raki — this one made with mulberries. Bled sips the fiery spirit and cracks open walnuts with his bare hands while watching the Vjosa flow silently past. The walnuts Sali serves come from her birth village of Gostivisht, in the mountains, where she takes her bees to feed on the bedunica flowers and where she hopes to one day open a guest home.

Perched on a hillside above the Drino River — the largest tributary of the Vjosa — Gjirokaster is bursting with culture. It’s where the Albanian National Folk Festival is held every few years, with people coming from around the country to perform traditional music, including polyphonic singing, a voice technique recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Gjirokaster is also known as the City of Stone, its historic centre a UNESCO world heritage site recognized for its outstanding 17th-century two-storey houses. Is this cultural richness another benefit owed to the natural abundance these waterways provide? After all, with healthy rivers come healthy flora and fauna, which in turn allow people to create stable settlements and ultimately thrive. When people thrive, art blossoms. 

Not all villages in the area have prospered, however. Lekdush, high in the mountainous Kurvelesh region near the source of two major tributaries of the Vjosa, is an isolated village that suffers economic hardship and migration. In 2021, the government built a highway to make it easier for both locals and tourists to reach it. That night, we fall asleep in cosy, straw huts meant to resemble traditional shepherd’s quarters. The owner of Lekdush Camping, Kreshnik Shehu, who got the idea for the simple huts during the COVID pandemic, is hoping tourism will be a way forward.

Leaving the river delta, we stop for lunch and wine tasting at Kantina Balaj before arriving at our final destination, the ancient city of Apollonia that was once the Vjosa’s end point. “This is older than Rome,” says Bled, as we stroll through the minimally excavated ruins of what was once one of the most important cities of the ancient Mediterranean. It was here, in the city’s famous Academy, that Gaius Octavius was studying when he learned that his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, had been murdered, laying the groundwork for him to become Rome’s first emperor.

The once mighty city owed its glory to the Vjosa, before an earthquake in AD 234 caused the river to change course, leaving Apollonia to crumble and fade into antiquity. But long before anyone thought of protecting rivers or granting them legal personhood, the Vjosa was revered, personified and mythologized.

Like ancient Apollonia, modern Albania still owes a great deal to this river running through it. And if the old man could see himself today, still flowing wild and free, he’d surely be pleased.