Meet the guides
The family behind the tours, the guides who take you down the river, and what their certifications actually mean for your day.
Illyrian Adventures is a family, and then it is a team. Everyone who takes you down the river, into the canyon or up a mountain track was born in Përmet or has spent their working life here. This is who you will meet.
Enriko
Enriko started the tours, and he is usually the person who answers your WhatsApp message. Born and raised in Përmet, he has spent his working life on the Vjosa: rafting and kayaking its rapids, leading jeep days into the Langarica canyon, running multi-day river expeditions, and walking guests through the old churches and stone villages of the valley.
He holds national certification as a tour guide and as a rafting guide, speaks English, Italian and Albanian, and is reachable around the clock - on the water, at the house, or on the phone. If you have a question about the river that is not answered on this site, he is the one to ask.
Kastrioti
Enriko's father, and the master beekeeper. Kastrioti has kept bees on these slopes all his life, and the family farm he started with Mariella in 2008 is where Illyrian Adventures grew from. On the beekeeping day he opens a hive for you, explains what the bees are foraging on that week - thyme, sage, wild oregano, chestnut - and lets you taste the honey raw, the way it comes out. The honey vinegar, the raki and the liqueur on the table at the house are his too.
Mariella
Enriko's mother, and the reason people come back to Honey House Kastrioti. Breakfast is made by hand each morning: local specialities, fruit and vegetables from the family garden, bread from the oven, homemade yoghurt and the year's honey, eaten outdoors above the river. Every guest is met with a glass of raki and a spoonful of honey. That is not a marketing line; it is what happens when you arrive.
The river guides
The rafting and kayaking days run with guides who hold international river safety certification and who grew up on this water. They know every current, every rapid and every pool of the Vjosa, and they read it fresh each morning because the river moves its bed from one season to the next.
What that certification means for you is simple: the person in the back of your raft is trained for rescues, has a plan for every rapid before you reach it, and is calm when you are not. Many of our guests are non-swimmers. Nobody has ever needed to be anything more than willing to get wet.
The drivers and the hosts
The off-road days run with driver-guides who know the mountain tracks to Leusë, Frashër and the Hotova forest and the history behind them. The village tastings happen at the tables of families who make the gliko, the raki and the cheese themselves, and who have been hosting visitors in their courtyards for longer than we have been running tours.
We do not just guide you down the river. We are from here, and we would like you to see the place we see.
What ties it together
Because one family runs the guesthouse, the 4x4s, the kitchen and the boats, we can arrange the whole trip from the moment you arrive: the rooms, a car if you need one, pick-ups from Gjirokastër, Berat or Tirana, a private guide for your group, a barbecue on the riverbank. Tell us what you have in mind and we build the days around it.
The rest is on the About page. The best way to meet us is to come.
