Four Weeks In Greece: Day 3, Albania

My impression of Albania prior to today was that it was a really poor country whose infrastructure was aged (much like the US's). Well color me surprised! Albania has a lot going for it. In fact, a young Australian couple we met are about 4 months into their 6-month European vacation. They have visited The Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, and Albania. So far, Albania was her favorite! She cited the mountains in the northern part of the country as being extremely beautiful. Food is good and relatively inexpensive, the people are super friendly. We found the roads to be fine and the buses up-to-date. So there you have it, folks. It seems the next cool place to visit is Albania.

From an elderly couple from Ireland yesterday we learned about Albania's Butrint National Archeological Park, a World UNESCO site south of Saranda, Albania, very close to their border with Greece. It sounded like a good thing to see so after our ferry arrived in Saranda, we hopped on a bus for the 17 km ride to the park. There, we saw ancient ruins from various periods: Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian. Some stones had some form of writing on them.

Click on the photos to zoom in.

Let me know if you can read what it says.

Of course, there had to be an Amphitheater. What would the ancient Romans do without a stage to perform on?!

At several points, we were treated to some pretty vistas.

I have no idea why this photo is rotated 90 degrees right.

After Butrint, we took a cab to a beach in Ksamil. Located about 10km from Butrint it had white sand and wonderfully clear blue and turquoise water, warm yet refreshing. We loved it! They had different "beach clubs", each with their own style of lounge chairs. For €10, you can lounge away! We elected to just throw our knapsacks on the sand, save the €10, and spend our time in the water.