Albania

We visited Albania on Sunday. Well, what a surprise!

Sarande

We were expecting this to be grim, but certainly southern Albania is beautiful with clear blue rivers, trees, mountains and lakes. Yes, there are a lot of new buildings going up in Sarande, but we left there with a totally different view of the place. Everyone was kind and helpful, the countryside very beautiful. The country had been freed from its yoke of communist "grimness". You get the feeling it is yet to be discovered.

We were picked up from our hotel in Corfu at 8.30am. Our first impression of Greek organisation was going through customs. A Greek lady said we must have 3 things in our hands. Firstly our passports, secondly a boarding pass and thirdly  a small piece of paper the police would scan. Of course, they did not have enough of the latter to go around! The other Greek oddity was the scanner. Both leaving Corfu and arriving back my bag and body were scanned. Both times it bleeped but no-one checked! It was a total waste of time. The hydrofoil to Albania took 35 minutes. Both going and returning,  the seats were faulty. Greek!

Butrint

Albania was great. The site at Butrint was amazing, the Blue Eye spring had clear, clear water. Sarande was like any seaside resort on the Med. There was a lot of new building going on. Who pays?

We left with a good impression of Albania. It was much nicer than we had expected. We were able to use Euros and it was much less expensive than Corfu.

There appear to be 2 sorts of swifts and swallows about. There are alpine swifts and "our" swifts as well as red-rumped and "our" swallows.

We got back to our hotel about 7.30pm after a long, but good, day. The weather was perfect.