Albania and Northern Greece 2023: Part Two: Saranda, Albania

Corfu-Saranda 4^th June 2023

In my haste to get Mrs Mad’s humungous suitcase down the stairs I zip it up too quickly and slash my arm on a loose bit of metal. There’s blood everywhere. Luckily, we find some bandages in a first aid kit. It’s a superficial wound but it’s not a good look.

One reason for choosing the Airbnb was that it’s a 600m 8-minute walk to the harbour, but that’s just one side of the harbour, not the bit where the boats go from. That’s another kilometre away and it’s burning hot.

The Ferry Terminal is rubbish. There’s one tiny snack bar and nothing that says when the ferries are going, or what we should be doing. Some people are queuing, but we’re over an hour early as that’s when they told us to come, and I don’t know which boat they’re queuing for. I ask a lady at the information counter who has absolutely no interest in helping tourists. I then ask a friendly woman at a car rental and she tells me that yes, this is the queue we should be in.

They check our tickets and passports and we wait around for another hour. The duty-free shop is incredibly cheap. Finally, we’re herded outside and they point at a hydrofoil. The scenery in the channel between Corfu and Albania is incredibly beautiful, but we don’t see any of it because we’re inside a stuffy hole in a vessel determined to beat the speedboat record and the windows are black.

The port of Sarande (pronounced Saranda) is in a pleasant curved bay with a shallow harbour that keeps out the cruise ships. There’s no airport in Southern Albania, so you either come via Corfu or fly to Tirana and get a six-hour coach, or you drive a car. You’d think this might limit tourism somewhat, but nobody’s told the Albanians who have built hotels in every conceivable spot, including up the mountain slopes. Most are unfinished and grey. It would have been a very beautiful town if planning regulators had existed.

Passport processing, even though they already did this in Corfu, takes an age until the woman in charge decides she wants to go to lunch and opens up more desks. Then it’s a short trundle to the Airbnb past a dilapidated funfair and a vegetable market whose vendors look at us pleadingly. I didn’t know what to expect from Albania, but apart from some fairly obvious poverty it looks just like Greece or Turkey.

Unlike in Greece, most people do not speak English and Albanian is not a language I’m tempted to mis-pronounce. We wait in the shade of a basement at the address I’ve been given until an old guy turns up and directs us to the building next door. I think I’ve made a mistake but check again and the apartment, up on the sixth floor but thankfully with a lift, is not the one I booked. I’ve no complaints – it’s very spacious and clean and there’s a massive balcony – but the owner has obviously double-booked and rented this guy’s place instead. The singer in the nearest mosque has a beautiful voice, the best I’ve ever heard from a muezzin (yes, I looked that up), and every time he launches the call to prayer this Alsatian dog comes onto the balcony of the neighbouring flat that I did book and joins in.

We’re hungry and go for lunch. Food is a lot like Greek food but half the price. We get free dessert and wander along the promenade. It’s very long, the beach is artificial and there’s not much of any interest. A beautiful newly-built beach bar with waterside tables only has Carling on draught so we return inland. The main road south is narrow and congested and the whole town feels very cramped. We find the town square where we strike lucky at the third ATM, peruse the very disappointing remains of a Roman basilica and synagogue, try to imagine where the bus station is supposed to be and look at the statue of Hillary Clinton. Yes, really. It’s because she addressed the Albanian parliament in 2012 with promises of hundreds of years of US-Albanian friendship. The fact that they’ve hidden it off the side of the town square may be because it’s a terrible sculpture and looks nothing like her.

We walk around the western headland to see if it looks nicer round there, but it doesn’t so we go to a Jamaican-themed beach bar which misses several tricks in that it has no Caribbean food, drinks, music or people. Mrs Mad’s quite happy to read her book by esteemed Albanian Ismail Kadere so we return to our apartment via a supermarket, which is quite ordinary apart from the lack of tonic water. The sunset is quite beautiful and the darkness masks the hideous architecture, so it becomes very pleasing, especially when the muezzin and Alsatian strike up a harmony.

In our search for dinner, we stumble upon an Elvis-themed bar. The walls are lined with photos and it suddenly occurs to me – that’s not Elvis, it’s the barman! In his youth he swam to Corfu to escape the brutal regime of Enver Hoxha and have the freedom to listen to his favourite singer. Now he’s known as the Albanian Elvis and performs across the Balkans. He doesn’t look anything like him, but he’s a lovely guy.

None of the restaurants are exciting us. There’s a pizza joint that proudly advertises ‘you haven’t been in Saranda if you haven’t been at Nasto!’ Every restaurant seems to have the same menu – pizza, pasta and Greek food. On an inland road there’s a seafood restaurant called Marini with a terrace that looks nice. It’s busy but they squeeze us in and the food is very good, except for the potatoes which are almost raw. The lovely owner, an Albanian-American woman, asks if we’ve enjoyed our meal and is horrified when Mrs Mad mentions the potatoes. She checks them, agrees with us, and thanks us profusely for being honest as nobody else said anything. She’s got new staff aged 14-16 because most of the young Albanian men and women have left the country because of the crappy economy and lack of any job prospects. She offers us free food, free wine – it’s a bit much really, like the Monty Python sketch where they mention there’s a dirty fork. We’re stuffed but accept a carafe of wine from her own vineyard, maybe two, and spend the rest of the evening until closing chatting to her. There’s free dessert. I tip the young waiter and he looks very, very pleased.

Saranda (Butrint) 5^th June 2023

After a so-so coffee or two, we negotiate an Albanian bus trip. We find the stop recommended by Google Maps by the main square but, when the old militaristic vehicle arrives, we realise we’re not getting on. I mean, it’s jam-packed – every single centimetre is occupied by somebody’s limb. The next bus is in an hour and, obviously, it picks up from somewhere else, so we have a third coffee and walk to the previous stop which is by the harbour. It’s also packed, but we get on and the fare is practically nothing.

It's a slow crawl through Saranda because there’s absolutely no infrastructure anywhere in Albania and people are allowed to do whatever they want, so the road is too narrow and decrepit and there’s too many vehicles. It takes 45 minutes to get out of the town and then we’re at a beach resort called Ksamil where everyone but us gets off. The bus continues, passing beautiful lagoons with posts to which strings of mussels are tied, to the unfortunately named Butrint Archaeological Park. It’s a World Heritage site, which means the Government are not allowed to sell the surrounding land to developers who would doubtless erect behemoths of hotels, restaurants and amusement arcades, like in Saranda and Ksamil. It’s almost empty because the tour buses from Corfu have yet to reach it today, or have already been, or perhaps because it’s a Monday.

It's a stunning place, actually an island with a lagoon on one side and a sea inlet on the other. The numerous ruins, which are largely in good condition, are centred around a hill which has a Venetian Castle and fine views. The remains date from the Hellenistic, late-Roman and medieval periods – all the ages I know nothing about. One of the best archaeological sites I’ve ever been to, and I’ve seen a few.

By the entrance there’s a precarious car ferry pulled by ropes that takes people to the Northern Greece border, which is close. We wait ages for the return bus, which doesn’t leave from where it dropped us, and guess at which stop to get off in Ksamil. It’s a bit of a hike in the hot sun over a hill but we find a beach. They’re like in Italy – private and you have to rent a sun bed. I’m sure they’re cheap but we’re hungry so go to the restaurant above. It has a beautiful view over a round island which is being circumnavigated by a fleet of pedalos. Mrs Mad has good mussels and chips and I notice the diners in front of me, seven men and one glamorous young woman, their table groaning with lobsters, appear to be Russian. I don’t know if they’re good Russians or bad Russians, but they do look battle-worn and a bit sinister.

We’ve bought our swimming costumes, but it’s too much hassle so we return to a bus stop. The bus is about to arrive but a desperate taxi driver who has been haranguing us for the past fifteen minutes, offers us and two other random people a fare back to Saranda for two euro each. The young male is desperate to get into the Finnish girl’s woman’s knickers, even though he’s just met her. He tells her some story about how Saranda is named after Greek martyrs. ‘Oh, are you Greek?’ I ask innocently. He stares at me with a menacing smile. ‘Yes, I was born in Athens,’ and he names several Greek islands that he’s heard of, but obviously he isn’t interested in talking to me or Mrs Mad. He gets off before we get to the centre of town, insisting on giving the uninterested girl his phone number. The taxi driver, who up to now has said nothing, needlessly tells us ‘You do realise he's Albanian, don’t you?’

One of Tripadvisor’s recommendations is a place called Oda E Babes which serves traditional Albanian food. It’s a bit of a climb up the mountain through deserted streets and the restaurant is absolutely tiny with room for eight people. We’re the only ones there the entire time, except for an American couple who walk in and ask for burgers before their bus leaves in ten minutes. The 14 dishes of Albanian meze are very small, pre-prepared, lukewarm and uninteresting. The main course byrek (an Albanian cheese pie) is fine, but these things are everywhere. We get free dessert. Our big balcony, gin and tonic and a view of the night sky become more appealing.