Incredibly colorful Albania
We have repeatedly heard about the Albanian Maldives, but never had the opportunity to fly and check. Either Albania needs tests, or Albania is more expensive than Egypt and other destinations. And finally, after ten years of travel and the price is low, and we are vaccinated and promotional rates directly to those very “Maldives” in Ksamil. Without thinking twice, for the last money we took a package tour with breakfasts, I prepared a laptop for work, packed my suitcase and a day later we were already on the road moving further and further away from the Kiev slush and cold weather. As for the last money, we just had the amount left, which should theoretically be enough for lunches and dinners, and even if we're lucky enough to swim to Greece.
So that's what I want to say about all this comparison with the Maldives. In fact, it is not correct to compare with the Maldives, I would rather say that this is Albanian Zanzibar and even with light notes of Thailand in some places. Is it really as beautiful in Ksamil as in the pictures? NO! It's even better there! Not a single photo can convey the beauty of those beaches that we will discover on this trip. The camera photographed quite well, however, the full beauty can only be seen with your own eyes.
Mirror Beach
I'm talking about the camera in the past tense, because the beauty of the sea swallowed it up in the truest sense of the word, but it's already under repair and everything seems to be not so bad. The main thing is that the memory card survived and now we can enjoy the beauty of this journey together. Fortunately for us, the last photo from the camera was taken on the most beautiful Mirror beach.
So I can show the beauty of Albanian Zanzibar as much as possible. In the meantime, we are flying in an airplane and listening to the announcement of the landing in Tirana. When the clouds parted behind the porthole, it opened before us like a fairy-tale country.
These are high green mountains, illuminated by the golden rays of the evening sun, a river flows under the mountains, and cities are scattered on the other side. We couldn't stop ourselves from the beauty and were already very inspired. Customs here is passed at an incredible speed. Our suitcase for the first time left on the tape the very first. I was waiting for this to happen someday! We took this as a sign of a good start to the journey. Two girls approached us at the airport and asked if we knew the bus schedule. Dasha and I felt embarrassed that on this trip we were not wild tourists, but we promised to improve. The problem is that it would be more expensive to fly here as a savage than a package tour. But now let's add a fly in the ointment to the coming Maldives. From the airport you need to go 5.5 hours by bus.
In fact, the road to the airport and back will take two daylight hours from the tour. But the tourists who sit on the bus know exactly what they need to go through for the sake of it. As the woman sitting next to me said, “Now my dream will come true and I will visit Ksamil! ”, Yes, we ourselves, based on photographs on the Internet, understood that now we would plunge into the world of beauty. On the bus, we came across a positive guide who told facts about Albania in a comic format for about an hour. In particular, we liked how to understand your rights by the color of the police uniform. It was dark all the way that we drove, we could only see the silhouettes of the majestic mountains. There was a stop in the middle of the way for a snack. The prices in the restaurant pleasantly pleased me, I really chose an unsuccessfully fatty burek for a snack and already mistakenly thought that food in this country might not come in. But don't judge the gastronomy of a country by its fat burek!
The distant future of tourism begins with an Albanian hotel
We arrived at the hotel after midnight and there was a pleasant discovery, I don’t know how, but Albania did the impossible! Imagine here when you check in, you just need to take a key card with your last name and two bracelets at the reception from the table. That's all the settlement! This is the first country in which you do not need to fill out questionnaires, wait for your passports to be photocopied, then just wait for something else or look for a pen, which is the only one for everyone. All this is not there, you just take a card with your last name from the table! I have never seen such an easy, simple and fast check-in even in expensive hotels in Germany. This is the first hotel in the world that thought of taking data about tourists directly from a booking request from a tour operator. By the way, we observed a similar attempt to step into the distant future in Denmark. There, the questionnaire came to me in the form of a link immediately after booking the hotel. But upon arrival, they gave us the usual questionnaire and everything went according to the old one. In Munich, there was also an attempt to create a similar system, where even the key was written directly into the mobile application in order to immediately go and check in, but there was no bureaucracy at the reception. On this point, Albania received a solid five.
A little about the locals
This is another nice phenomenon. Nobody speaks English here. Everyone speaks Albanian, and not the one that was in the Internet memes in the form of “Preved-Medved! Handsome! ”, but in its own complex language. But the pleasantness lies in the fact that each worker in his field knows exactly those English words that are needed to provide his services. For example, in a restaurant we want to order wine, and we want to clarify whether it is possible to take less than half a liter. The waiter will not understand us, but nevertheless he will clearly answer in English “White wine, 500 grams, dry, price 400 lek”. As a result, the language barrier was not felt at all. Almost every Albanian will give the most complete description of what you are interested in, although they will not even understand what exactly you are asking. As a result, it is easy to “communicate” with Albanians, even without knowing the language. The people themselves, friendly and positive, no one will try to deceive you. Even when the taxi driver started his old hurdy-gurdy that they had expensive gas, I then looked at the cost of gasoline and realized that the taxi driver was telling the truth.
Ksamil
The first morning began with a heavy downpour that literally flooded the rooftop breakfast terrace. The sea in the color of a shower did not at all give hope for beauty. Fortunately, all this element lasted 15 minutes, the sun came out and no longer hid until the very end of the journey. A funny fact is that under the sunlight, the sea is not particularly beautiful. But we perfectly understood that this is only the location of our hotel. An interesting point is that our hotel had a fairly large number of negative reviews about breakfast. But apparently we are not whimsical at all, the breakfasts in our hotel were listed as one of the best in the history of our hotels, and in general we were very pleased with our Aler Bianco hotel (Ksamil), the only moment is 20-30 minutes walk to the most beautiful beaches, although after the Seychelles mountains, such getting to the beaches didn’t count at all) There was a clear sky and sun outside, we ran to get acquainted with the new city. We were immediately greeted by the most beautiful fir trees and blue water, although the water was beautiful, we knew that all the sea potential was concentrated a little further. A 20-minute promenade along the sea led from the hotel to the city center.
When the promenade ended, those famous Maldivian beaches began to appear. It was really a shock for us that such a beautiful water is located so close to Ukraine. And one beautiful beach was immediately replaced by another even more beautiful. Previously, Turkish Oludeniz was considered the king of beautiful beaches from neighboring countries, but Ksamil literally moved it to second place in the first 30 minutes. There is even a similar beach with the same gradient line as in Oludeniz. Also on one of the beaches there is a wooden pontoon, which seems to have been put here just for the sake of photographs.
Now I can easily guess Albania from this place by banners on travel agencies. But the external beauty of the beaches is not all that will surprise Ksmail, prepared tourists, including us, take underwater masks with them. We really didn’t have enough time for the first half of the trip to snorkel, but as it turned out later, we were eagerly awaited underwater: bright and large starfish and hundreds of swimming fish around. There are many varieties of fish, but there are no colored corals and, accordingly, the colors of the fish are gray, although there are really many varieties.
As an exception, sometimes one or two colorful ones swim in a labyrinth color and I saw one red one, and of course where without sea urchins. Where should you look for stars? They are located on the vertical rocks of the local islands, which can be reached by catamaran. Just please don't take them off the sheer walls for a photo, just swim around and admire. In fact, if we compare the underwater world with Egypt, Zanzibar, the Seychelles or the Maldives, then here it is the simplest of the above, nevertheless, swimming here without a mask is unforgivable. After all, the fish are always beautiful and even tasty. And now let's go through the most favorite in all travels, this is the local cuisine. I have heard about the legendary cheap seafood in Albania more than once.
But after the trip, the opinions of the tourists differed, someone really confirmed that they ate large shrimp here, and someone said that at least 40 euros for two to eat in a restaurant. Now we will find out how good the kitchen is in the end. We had just changed after the beach and a taxi driver drove up to us, offering to take us to Saranda for 400 lek ($ 4), he was just on the way. This is a neighboring town, to which we gladly agreed to go with him, it is better than waiting for a bus that costs 100 lek per person and will arrive only after 40 minutes.
Photo in Ksamil
In Saranda, we chose a tastier tavern and began to get acquainted with the local cuisine. Eating on a grand scale for two here costs up to 2.000 lek ($20) on average. On a grand scale, it really is to eat seafood with cold homemade wine, which is served here in carafes of 0.5 liters. Half a liter of wine costs 400 leks ($4) almost everywhere, and a dish with seafood from 600 leks ($6).
I don’t know why people cited shrimp every time as an argument, but the variety of dishes here is really impressive and pleases not only the eye, but also the taste buds. We also tried very hard to lean on the Greek salad. Vegetables seem to have just been plucked from the garden. And no matter what restaurant or tavern you choose, there is one rule - you always eat deliciously, and the restaurant may look quite simple and not inspire confidence with its appearance. The cult of food on this trip was no less important than visiting another gorgeous beach. We from Albania got high literally from the very first day. Even now, describing the country, I feel a surge of spiritual warmth, as if the waves of the Ionian Sea wrap me up again. And in general this year such pleasant discoveries as Bulgaria, Serbia and now they are proudly headed by Albania.
Saranda itself is a pretty good city to wander around, but there is no such beach beauty as in neighboring Ksamil, so we will have this city as a transfer city. Between Saranda and Ksamil there is Monastiri beach. Buses in the off-season run once an hour. We just popped in for an hour on the way back. But it was already quite evening and the beach did not show us all its beauty, although then I thought it was beautiful. But it will be really beautiful when we get here in the morning.
In the evening Ksamil, we were treated to meat moussaka and pasta with octopuses, squid and mussels, which perfectly complemented the daily diet, which in the afternoon consisted of risotto with a large crab. By the way, we have chosen a restaurant and as a result, almost all meals in Ksamil were held in it - Restauracja Cimi. Looks rather unkempt with shabby and not very clean menus, but in our experience, these are usually the best restaurants. The staff consisted of two employees, they are also cooks and waiters. One always walked with an independent gaze fixed on the distance. When he took the order, it seemed that both the restaurant and the visitors got it, the second man was the exact opposite, short, round-shouldered and very helpful.
He literally radiated joy in every second of his life, when he brought a dish, he said something in Albanian-Polish, but said it with such goodwill that I immediately wanted him to bring something else. By the way, in the restaurant for some reason they speak not only Albanian, but also Polish. It seemed to me that even cats understand Polish here, by the way, cats are obligatory members of the feast here. They love this restaurant too. An obligatory item in the Balkans is a sample of a local strong drink. Here they have adopted brandy, in this restaurant for some reason they pour it into a glass of such a volume that the tourist could not overpower the second glass. They definitely don’t feel sorry for rakia here. It's still lucky that we decided to try one glass for two)))
We spent the next day on the island of Corfu in Greece >>>
The best beaches in Albania
Between Ksamil and Saranda there are a number of semi-wild beaches. As far as we read, in the season here you need to take sunbeds on a preliminary reservation, and there are big traffic jams at the entrance to Ksamil. Now, at the end of September, it is already considered out of season and on the beaches with a handful of empty sunbeds, among which a maximum of five are occupied. And about 10-20 tourists on the entire beach. We started the hiking route from Ksamil to the monastery. This route takes several hours and just runs through all the beaches. The beaches were literally one more beautiful than the other.
It was not our first day in Albania, but we never ceased to be surprised. You look from above, a beautiful beach, beautiful milky-turquoise water, there is a small rock on which a certain romantic sits and contemplates, how can it be more beautiful? And then the next beach, on which the water is not uniform, but as if the sea was painted in oil, and milky turquoise diverges in divorces among the blue water, enveloping dark blue spots.
Definitely the architect of the oceanic beauty of Zanzibar and the local beaches is the same, the handwriting is well recognizable. The only thing is that you need to go down the mountain to each beach, and if you want to change the beach, you need to climb the mountain back, but this is not critically high. The bravest here can even climb the bunker system. But bats began to squeak menacingly from the darkness, and we decided not to go deeper into the bunker. In general, for some reason, over the past year I began to bypass bats))) The leader of beauty from the chain of beaches is Mirror. You can either go down to it from above, or go from the next one.
The trick with the transition is quite dangerous and during a strong storm it is better not to repeat it. You need to run about ten meters along the rock, against which the sea beats with great force. In fact, it was necessary to wait for a strong wave hit, make sure that the next wave would not be strong and start running. It’s definitely impossible to slip between two waves, so you need to catch the weak one. My first attempt failed, just before the start I was hit by a wave with such force that my leg was bled with stones, but not much. We waited a couple of minutes until the sea calmed down a bit. We waited for two big waves in a row, you can run. It turned out to slip through, even the backpack almost got wet. He laid out all the things to dry away from the sea and took the running Dasha. The idea, of course, was dumb.
There is good news for travelers who walk between the beaches on foot, as opposed to the fact that you need to constantly climb up, on one of the climbs you will find an old temple with an excellent panorama.
Apparently, there should be more fantastic sunsets here, but we didn’t get a single sunset, as we were limited by the reduced off-season bus schedule. Taxis are quite expensive here.
Blue Eye
We were dropped off at Saranda. There we transferred to the Saranda-Tirana regular bus and went to the Blue Eye for 300 lek ($ 3). Drive for 30 minutes, then you need to get off the track and walk for another 30 minutes. The bus driver knows where to drop off. But there is a risk that you may not jump back on this bus if it is full. Schedule in the photo section. We got to the Blue Eye with a slight delay than the tour group, which was traveling by bus. I decided to try my luck and asked the same girl if she would drop us now to Gjirokastra. The guide was clearly surprised that we were also here, but she said that she would not give us a ride))) So, we are there. This is a picturesque place with a very deep and blue river that flows out of the ground. It is very good to be here in the off-season, since there are no people who want to swim at all and you can enjoy the extraordinary beauty.
In fact, spending 20 minutes on the spot is enough. But for the sake of such beauty, it is definitely worth getting here. Still pleasing to the eye. Then we saw a real fatal number with a happy ending. Some foreigner decided to jump from a height right into the center of the eye. I was terrified, I realized in a second that the chance to emerge back is not so great, since the water feels less than ten degrees to the touch and there is a big risk of not coping with such a drop. The horror for me was that if he became ill, then an attempt to save him would be exactly the same risky for his life. The chance to emerge yourself will be much lower, since the result will already be visible to what this leads. Everything described above flashed through my head in a split second, even the dog that traveled with the guy stood in horror, but, fortunately, he surfaced and swam to the shore. People, don't do this, especially if the water is seen to be in a turbulent state. So, the eye is beautiful, but now you need to somehow get to Gjirokastra. Fortunately, to Gjirokastra, we can say that there is only one road and almost all tourists by car will go either to Gjirokastra or to Saranda. Dasha called the departing car and the guys from Lvov happily took us on a trip.
Girokastra
For about forty minutes we crossed the mountain range and landed at the bus station in Gjirokastra. Moving along a mountain serpentine, after a rocking ship in Greece, took place at the limit. The consequences of such pitching will still be felt for some time.
The problem of the main bus station of Gjirokastra is that there is no timetable to Saranda, no one knows it and it seems that they will not know. But specifically, we will take a bus that will travel from Tirana and stop at the bus station in Gjirokastra at 16:30 at a price of 300 lek ($ 3). Dasha calculated this time to the minute, analyzing the distance to Tirana and what time he leaves Tirana according to the schedule. An interesting fact, but the only employee of the station proved to us that such a bus does not exist at all. We had quite a lot of time in the city. There are conditionally three parts here, this is an area with old houses, a center, and an overview of a paid castle. We started with an old estate.
There are a lot of them, you have to choose any that you like and pay for the entrance with a tour, you can at least everything, but I don’t think that they will be very different from each other. I don’t remember the name of ours, but the entrance costs 200 leks ($2). And the woman introduced us in sufficient detail to how Albanians lived here in the past centuries. I love the time in which I live even more)))
On the one hand, their life seems to me very boring, although I understand perfectly well that they were definitely not bored. It turns out that in our time, 95 percent of the problems of the past years have been resolved, and now there are problems of a different level. Now we do not spend the whole day washing things, we have full control over hot and cold water, we can contact and see anyone at any time, and we also have access to any cuisine of the world right at our home and the ability to get anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes. days. And I also really appreciate the level of development of medicine and, of course, the transition of the main part of the world to online mode. But, by the way, we all know very well what a cool time we live in.
I would also gladly describe how lucky we were to be born in Ukraine, but to fully understand this phenomenon, you need to travel and see how people live in other countries and what problems they face even in the most advanced countries, such as Japan. Many, of course, may not agree with my statement, but believe me, the opportunities that we have in our country are not available everywhere. But back to the city with incredible views. The views here are well revealed just from the area with estates.
I think that the views from the top of the castle are even more beautiful, but, to be honest, I had neither the strength nor the desire to climb to the very top. After visiting the estate, we decided to check out the local cuisine. Finding a restaurant with picturesque views is not a problem at all. A popular dish of local restaurants is a mix of local cuisine. It was delicious and now we were calm that we tried at least something from the local besides seafood)))
A separate cherry on the cake is the city center, three streets intersect here and the houses look so beautiful, apparently the Albanian government is following this calling card.
By the number of tourists taking pictures, this place is clearly not the only one we have chosen. By the way, the town here is similar to the Turkish Sirince. I had to make a coffee stop in one of the cozy streets. This is how we leisurely spent our time in this unusually beautiful city. As for the unusualness, I noticed that here on the houses the roofs are not from the usual tiles, but from flat stones. Previously, we did not notice this, it looks quite unusual and original. And all the time you admire the view of the high mountains. By the way, the mountain views here are a bit reminiscent of the Peruvian Ollantaytambo.
There, the height of the mountains literally made you dizzy when you looked up. An interesting fact, we were once in a Montenegrin city, which is divided by a mountain with Albania. And that mountain was significantly different from the usual landscapes of Montenegro. As a result, I imagined Albania in such colors, as it turned out to be.
When we arrived at the bus station hoping to catch an earlier bus, we found out that there were no buses planned yet. Here it is important to leave in such a way as to catch the last bus from Sarandva to Ksamil, it will depart at 18:30. So, we have about an hour more, it turns out that we will still look, some apparently famous bridge is marked on the map, five minutes from us. We came to the bridge, nothing special, it doesn’t even look like a bridge, it’s just that for some reason all the bridges are highlighted on the maps. But they looked at the fisherman, who could not catch a fish in the river, although it was literally teeming with fish. We were directly worried about him, but luck was not on his side. Then we went for a walk along the country road, which obviously led to some kind of steppe. We were noticed by workers at one of the houses and asked if we got lost in Albania by chance? When I confidently said that everything was in order, the man asked where we were planning to go then.
At such moments, it's hard to explain that you're going nowhere) Like once in Hong Kong we saw a double-decker bus and hurried to ride it, and a local resident decided to help us, took out a tablet with a map and asked where we want to go)) ) The reverse chain of crossings to Ksamil has developed like a perfect puzzle. We even had some time to relax on the benches by the sea in Saranda. By the way, birds sang unusually loudly there that day, there weren’t even such a number of birds singing at the same time in Annecy) Today for dinner we decided to check the statement that in addition to seafood, Albania should be famous for its pizza, at least they told me so. We checked one of the pizzerias, as a result, the most delicious pizza turned out to be with tuna) So you can’t get away from seafood anyway)
Butrint
There are ruins five kilometers from Ksamil. Unfortunately, it will be inconvenient to track there on foot, since you have to walk along the highway all the time, but you can get there by bus. Specifically, the ruins themselves, as for me, do not represent anything of value at all.
The mosaic was supposed to be preserved here, it is even in the photo in the booklets, but when you come to look at that place, a sign hangs that the Albanians were very worried about its safety in the open air, so they decided to conserve it using super technology. Accordingly, for conservation, they took her to another place.
And it seems like it's been a long time. But they raised the price of entry from 700 to 1000 leks. Well, at least the stones were not taken away from the ruins. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth going to Butrint, there is a completely different nature and landscapes than in Ksamil and other cities. And the ruins are actually not so bad, it’s just that we have seen enough of such things already) There is a motor platform near the entrance to the castle, it ferries tourists and vehicles across the river.
After crossing, go left. A river will flow on the right side, a large lake on the left, hefty crabs looked at us from the lake, there are a lot of them. When you walk between the river and the lake, you worry so as not to stumble and go to the crabs for lunch. At the sight of tourists, they threateningly hold their claws up. However, crabs are not the only danger here.
The entire trail is up to ten meters wide and there are many cows grazing here. For some reason, in the villages, I somehow feel calm around the cows, but here on a narrow isthmus in the wild, you don’t know what to expect. The main thing if you jump, then into the river, and not to the crabs.
The place here is very picturesque and if you are an artist, you should definitely take a canvas with you. You can go forward ad infinitum. We had a great safari. By the way, at the beginning of the journey, there is also a free fortress waiting for everyone. The eyes received incredible aesthetic pleasure from walking along the crab lake. We returned through the ferry back. Now you can either sail on a motor boat to another fortress, or go on foot towards Ksamil, in 20 minutes you will have a panorama of the lake flowing into the sea.
It sounds strange, but it is very similar) And from the panorama itself, jump into the return bus to Ksamil. The bus conductor greeted us like family. Only one riddle did not go out of my head, there are two buses on the route, and the conductor is always the same, even when he left with the bus in one direction, and you immediately sit on the opposite one, and he welcomes you there again. This mystery did not go out of my head all the trip, but, apparently, the Albanian government specifically selects very similar conductors, so that it would be easier for passengers to navigate who to pay, because they have neither tickets nor uniforms. And in general, we did not see more conductors in any other buses in all of Albania, it seems there are only two of them in the whole country. And most importantly, both are very positive, like all residents.
One morning, we got into a bus full of people. It is interesting that if we have a full bus and a minibus, although they all stand close, they are each on their own, and here we were part of a real large Albanian family. My back was a great handrail for other people. And all this Albanian sincerity is very conducive to the country, you feel at home all the time. We are back in the center, which means it's time to refresh ourselves. This time there was a large plate of mussels in wine sauce. Well, why do we have an abundance of Japanese and Georgian restaurants in our country, but no Albanian ones with their prices?? ? It's not fair!
After dinner there was sea, a lot of sea, I got acquainted with all the local lads with a mask under water. What I love about the beautiful sea is that its color changes and in the sunset it becomes more saturated blue. This blue is clearly visible when swimming in a mask. It was necessary to swim a lot, because in the evening a trip to the local confectionery was also planned, and for this you need to get rid of calories.
Although, as experience shows, how many calories you will not burn, but even the smallest cake for the night will quickly return everything to its place. And yes, it is worth noting that the Albanians have succeeded not only in the local cuisine, but also in the art of confectionery. Really delicious and lots of cream!
Achievements
It is believed that if you spend 10.000 hours on a business, you will become an expert in it. Today was a special day, it was our 500th day abroad, we spent over 12.000 hours traveling! Butrint became the 386th city in the 55th country. So far we have visited 36% of the world. This amount of travel took 9 years, 3 cameras, 2 tablets, and two or three pairs of legs depending on the direction. As it turned out before the next trip, two or three pairs of whole hands also played a significant role in travel. This statistic is very motivating and makes me happy.
The next day was dedicated to the beaches. The first two hours we sailed on a catamaran around the four islands, admiring the fish, starfish and beautiful cliffs. I would add a catamaran ride in Ksamil to the must-haves.
Rent costs 1000 lek per hour ($10) And if you take two hours, then another half an hour is a gift. You can land on and off the islands.
After the catamaran, we had the final call on the best beaches of our trip. By the way, today it was almost completely calm, and although the water was beautiful, it was much inferior in color to the sea that was on the beaches when the sea was stormy. So, if you arrive in Albania and see relatively large waves, you are in luck! Hurry to Mirror Beach to see all the beauty of the country. It was, unfortunately, the last day in Ksamil and now we have to go back by bus all the next day.
We still had a few hours before the plane, so we managed to walk around the neighboring village and eat some of the sweetest grapes. The area around the airport was pretty nice. In general, Albania, you really surprised us a lot and definitely deserve a high place in our travel rating!
Trip Information
Date of travel: 20.09. 2021 – 27.09. 2021
Hotel: Aler Bianco BB Package
Excursions: All by yourself
Trip difficulty: 3/10 (almost easy)
