Monday, 1st. July, 2019
I was woken up early this morning as we had left the curtains open and as dawn was breaking, I heard quite some activity down on the beach. I went out on our balcony and saw quite a few local senior citizens making their way to the beach for their early morning swim! As the sun rose behind the mountains, our side of the beach changed its colour to a golden shade. Soon the elderly community on the beach had changed their gear and were in the sea for their swim and chat………
Also just across on the right side of the beach, there is a small port and there are ferry boats and hydrofoils (Flying Dolphins) to cross over to Corfu which just lies outside the bay of Sarandë. These ferries start early morning and continue all day and are both for foot passengers as well as cars.
It’s a good thing we are spending 2 nights here in Sarandë. The hotel where we are staying is called the Royal Sarandë Hotel run by an Albanian family who live in London and come down by car in May and stay on till October. Their son and daughter also help run the hotel during their school vacations, managing the reception desk as well as breakfast.
After having coffee on our balcony, we went upstairs to the hotel’s roof terrace where a full breakfast was being served – such a delight to enjoy breakfast while admire the view from up here. Today we were going to do some sightseeing first and then close off the day by relaxing on the beach and having a swim
Our plan for today was to visit the “Blue Eye” – a natural wonder some half an hour away from Saranda and then onto Gjirokaster, an Ottoman historical town with Ali Pasha’s castle sitting on top of the hill towering over the grey slated town.
The Blue Eye – in Albanian, Sryi I Kalter, is a water spring and a natural phenomenon which has become a popular tourist attraction. The clear icy blue water of the river bubbles out of a depth of more than 50 meters – although divers have gone down to a depth of 50 meters, it is not known exactly how deep this spring karst hole is as divers have been pushed upwards when trying to go down deeper………. this spring is the source of the River Bistricë which flows 25 km further into the Ionian Sea near Sarandë. Although swimming is forbidden due to the swift current there were quite a few young people dared to get into the freezing water to have a swim. Well we only dipped our feet for a while……..
It was great sitting for a while in the shade of the huge sycamore trees while enjoying a coffee and a glass of icy cold spring water, however after some time we did get back into the car to continue our drive to Gjirokaster – another hour in the car winding through the mountainous roads till we reached our destination.
We must have been quite crazy as we started our walk around in the middle of the day when the sun is most hot – I felt the sun burning my legs as I stood still to take some pictures. Anyway our first stop was at the tourist office where I bought a marked up map. Our main visit was to wander around this old Ottoman town – UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city appears in historical records dating back to 1336 and was known by its Greek name: Argyokastro when it was part of the Byzantine Empire. However it fell under Ottoman rule in 1417 and remained part of the Ottoman Empire until 1913 when it was incorporated into the newly formed Albania.
The climb up to the castle was exhausting. – but well worth it and we spent quite some time exploring the site. The view was overwhelming!
I had also read that during the last dictator’s rule (Hoxha) there were tunnels dug under the castle to house his bunkers and this was so secretive that they were only discovered later in the 1990’s. It was too hot to go deep down under the castle so we just take it for granted that these tunnels do exist.
By the time we arrived back at our hotel, we had enough energy to get changed and go for a swim. The sea water was rather refreshing, sometimes cold but good to have a swim alternated with lying on the pebbly beach to feel the warm sun rays. We stayed till the sun disappeared behind the buildings on the west side – this is the first time we did not see a proper sunset ……
Back in our room, time to shower and go out for a meal – too tired to go looking around so we decided to have dinner at the restaurant next door to the hotel – and it was delicious -Gerry had his steak and I had linguine con frutti di mare and a salad to share – of course Gerry had to have his vanilla ice cream as his dessert!
I could hardly keep myself awake while Gerry ate his ice cream so you can imagine how happy I was to just walk a few steps to our hotel and crash into bed…….
To,orrow it’s going to be a long, long day driving – Sarandë to Galaxidi a distance of more than 400km.
