Sarande, Albania17 Oct 2009
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Sarande's beach
View from our room's balcony
City is lovely at dusk
Located on the coast very near to the Greek island of Corfu, Sarande is to be our last stop in Albania before we go via ferry to Greece.
Rather than take a furgon for the journey from Berat to Sarande, we bought tickets on a scheduled bus for the trip. But like so much in Albania, the bus was a rattle-trap affair that wandered from village to village over narrow, rutted mountain roads, picking up and letting off passengers at seemingly random points, taking 5.5 hours for a journey of only 115 km (72 miles)!
We arrived in Sarande none-the-worse for wear and quickly checked into a hotel overlooking the ocean; as with our other hotels, we were pleasantly surprised by the price and spaciousness. What we were not surprised by was the lack of a shower curtain; we've been in 3 hotels in Albania and peeked into many unoccupied neighboring rooms and there are simply small shower areas,with NO shower curtains. As you can imagine, bathing in this situation without flooding the bathroom and leaving a mess for whichever of us comes second, is tricky and not very relaxing or refreshing.
After settling in, we wandered along the waterfront, ate a lovely lunch, checked out the ferry location, prices and schedule, then watched the sunset from our balcony, well satisfied with our adventure in Albania.
