I've never been in the sea at Durres, though there are plenty of brave people who have. Most Western embassies here strongly advise against swimming in the waters off any of the major towns since they are all severely polluted. Now a study from the Ministry of Health has reached the same conclusions, singling out Durres, Vlora and Kavaja. This is hardly surprising in the case of Durres since the entire beach front has been blighted by uncontrolled development, and you don't have to be a genius to work out where all the sewage from those new apartments, hotels and restaurants is going. Quite apart from the dangers to public health for the local population, this level of pollution means that Albania will never develop into a major tourist destination in the way the government here seems to assume it will. Without clean beaches and clean water Albania won't have any tourist industry worth speaking of. Whether anything will be done about the problem is unclear. There is much l...