[1][2] He is described as The Last of Beys (Beu i Fundit), the embodiment of the Albanian aristocracy of the time, although he came from a caste founded on the principles of Ottoman military fief.

Eqrem grew up in his hometown and received his first lessons from private teachers, given the fact that his family was relatively wealthy not only in the region but throughout Janina Vilayet.

According to his memoirs written later while living in Austria, he writes that his first teachers were Luigi Beccali, an Italian from Messina, and Mehmet Effendi Lusi who served as imam in Kaninë, a nearby town.

Later, he served in the Foreign Ministry during the Prince's reign and was distinguished as the commander of a volunteer artillery battery during the attack of peasant rebels on Durrës.

He was a close friend of the Bavarian baroness Marie Amelie, Freiin von Godin, with whom he translated the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini into German.

[9] As a writer, Eqrem bej Vlora is remembered for his monograph Aus Berat und vom Tomor: Tagebuchblätter ('From Berat and Tomorr: Pages of a Diary', Albanian: Nga Berati në Tomorr dhe kthim : ditar[10]), Sarajevo 1911, and, in particular, for his two-volume German-language memoirs, published posthumously as Lebenserinnerungen ('Memoirs'), Munich 1968, 1973, which provide insight into the world of an early 20th-century Albanian nobleman.