Guesthouse Marashi

We stayed here 1 night before our Theth to Valbonë hike and it was wonderful. GETTING THERE We arrived in the minibus from Shkoder (booked with Northern Albanian Alps tour company), which parks in the "Centre" of Theth, and is about a 15 min walk to the guest house. It's an easy walk on a main rocky road along the river with our backpacks. We arrived too early for check in, but the hosts were very welcoming and provided coffee and offered to store our backpacks until check in. They arranged a taxi for us to the Theth Blue Eye trailhead (saved us 2 hours 😅). ROOM The beds were comfortable, room was clean and had a radiator for warmth at night. The view from our room in the main building we had was partially obscured by their second floor addition over the dining room, but could still see the beautiful mountains! FOOD The food was excellent (violeta made the best petula we've had in Albania in 2 weeks!). It's traditional guesthouse style - you sit and they serve you an abundance of traditional foods - cheese, meat, bread, and vegetables and fruit. We could eat dinner between 7-9, and breakfast started at 7am which was great to get started on our all day hike. We asked the night before and they packed us a lunch for our hike as well. Breakfast was included ( including coffee), and lunch and dinner + day time coffees are paid to the hosts. We paid about 2000 lek for 2 dinners + 2 lunches. IN THETH The guesthouse is well located - easy 15min walk from the centre/bus parking for arrival, easy walk to the Reconciliation Tower and Theth church, accessible to the road to either walk to the Theth Blue Eye (far!) or grab a taxi to the trailhead for 500 lek, who we arrange to come back to get us 3 hours later which was good timing. To hike to Valbonë in the morning, it's at 15 min walk back to the centre where the trail starts, so it does add an extra couple KM to your day hike but not much and honestly it's a nice warm up on flat road before the incline immediately starts on the trail.