BAY PALERMO (Albania): In 1984, when Albania was an isolated communist state in the same mould as today’s North Korea, a Mercedes in a convoy carrying a visiting German official overheated on Mt Llogara, overlooking a bay on Albania’s rugged Ionian coastline.

Emerging from his car, Franz Josef Strauss, then minister-president of Bavaria and one of the rare Western officials to step foot inside Enver Hoxha’s Albania, was struck by what he saw. “Virgin California,” he remarked.

Three decades later, Albania’s Bay of Porto Palermo, its castle and its deep blue waters are one of the country’s top tourist attractions, featured on European newspaper and Internet lists of places to visit for those with a taste of adventure.

Once host to military vessels and submarines, Porto Palermo was closed to the public under Hoxha. It opened a couple of years after communism ended in 1991 and Albania began its white-knuckle ride to capitalism.

Nowadays, the bay takes its appeal from its seclusion, situated just below a two-lane coastal road and as inviting to foreigners as it was once forbidden. German, Czech and Hungarian tourists lose no time in stripping off and bathing naked.

“No one bothers them; no one’s around,” said the bay’s caretaker, Klearko Koci. The area is rich in history, myth and legend, part of a coastline blighted in parts by high-rises but still unspoilt in others.

Just down the road, a tiny isthmus reaches out to a round rocky island, between two capes embracing the blue waters on both sides.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2014