I had always heard that the craziest roads and most aggressive drivers in Europe were to be found in Albania. Like a lot of my travels, my latest roadtrip was going to be about testing some popular assumptions.

Before this roadtrip started, I have to make a confession. I had only previously driven in the United States and Canada. Of the more than 50 countries I have visited, public transit was always my means of transportation. For some completely crazy idea, my brother and I decided that it would be an intelligent idea to drive in a country with the most aggressive drivers and roads in Europe. An apt comparison is to F1 drivers racing on a road course with ADHD, but who have forgotten to take their Adderall. Those are the kinds of people I was going to be driving toward on small country roads.

But first there was the matter of securing an international driver’s license. I showed up at my local AAA office to apply for the paperwork wearing a suit coat to compensate for my growing insecurity. Driver’s license photos never seem to turn out looking any better than a school yearbook photo. When mine printed, it appeared sketchy enough to warrant a couple of extra looks at a Balkan border crossing. You might think I was a small arms dealer, organ harvesting broker, wolfdog trainer or degenerate meme creator.

Fast forward a few weeks. It was a warm July morning in southern Montenegro as my brother and I drove toward the northeastern corner of Lake Shkodra and crossed the quiet border into northwestern Albania. The border guard scanned our passports, checked my registration paperwork and slightly smirked when he looked at my driver’s license photo. He muttered a few words in Albanian and waved us through the open barrier. Translation: “Good luck boys. You’re not in Kansas anymore.” I am now convinced the worst driver’s license photo can open new worlds.

After about 30 minutes of driving down the E762 — one of the main highways in northern Albania — we arrived in the small city of Koplik and took a roundabout on to a regional road for the journey to the Albanian Alps. It was then that we realized driving in Albania wasn’t going to be for the faint of heart.

When I researched rental car companies, most permitted driving throughout all of the Balkans except for Albania. We finally found one company in Dubrovnik that offered rentals to be driven into Albania, and as we cautiously criss-crossed the regional road toward the mountain town of Theth, we began to understand why.

The SH21 can best be described as one and half lanes at its widest, snaking like a python through the remote but beautiful Dinaric Alps. In many cases, there was little to no shoulder whatsoever. And if you are not scared of heights, the drivers coming toward you from the other direction will put the fear of God into you. Even after I pulled in my side mirror of our Mercedes C-Klasse diesel, drivers barreled past us within inches and consistently set off our proximity warning sensors. They didn’t even slightly slow down as I would retreat off road into the extreme edge of gravel, like a chihuahua cowering away from a German shepherd. Like a chihuahua, I barked back with a few choice words a few times. We weren’t halfway to Theth and my fingernails had already left visible marks in the top of the steering wheel, like a cat trying to cling to the top of a hot tin roof.

Despite the harrowing drivers, the 55.5km road from Koplik to Theth is one of the most beautiful roads in Europe. The road was only recently paved in 2021, but it’s still a raw and wild journey through Theth National Park. The almost impossibly narrow path winds up numerous switchbacks, some with steep gradients up to 15%. We drove ever higher toward the high peaks of the resplendent Dinaric Alps before we reached the top of Thore Pass at around 1.691m (5,547ft).

Below us stretched the rugged and gorgeous Theth Valley, dotted with small chalets and traditional stone houses. We cautiously descended several sharp switchbacks while I downshifted to some of the lowest gears in our all wheel drive hatchback. Reaching the end of descent, we deeply exhaled and breathed easy again after avoiding any head-on collisions around multiple blind curves.

The reward of the journey was the fairytale village of Theth, nestled under blue skies in the tranquil valley below the Accursed Mountains. There we crossed the clear and bubbling waters of the Theth river. The remote alpine village is a peaceful oasis after such an arduous and focused drive. After parking the Mercedes in the village, we hiked along the roaring waters past grazing cows and folksy stone homes. A young girl walked around the corner shepherding her family’s small herd of goats before we arrived at the scenic famous Theth stone church with its grey-tile roof. The alpine mountain scenery was so perfectly rural and majestic, the only thing missing was an Albanian version of the von Tapp family singing in the background.

Surrounded by lush meadows of wildflowers, the rural and traditional life of mountain living cast its spell on us as we gazed up the valley of the ancient Albanian Alps. We had found a slice of Balkan mountain living that embraces the old ways of life as we escaped the summer tourist crush encountered in Italy, Greece and Croatia. But most importantly, we didn’t have to take an unexpected ambulance visit to the hospital. I cannot even imagine how aggressive the ambulance drivers must be.