Friday 1 September 2017 - Sarande

We had a really good night’s sleep.  All that fresh air, no doubt.  In the morning I sent Richard out to buy us breakfast.  We were recommended to try the local specialty, Borek.  No one could explain what it was.  I assumed it was some sort of breakfast pastry, but it turned out to be types of cheese pie.  Not what I really wanted for breakfast.   I had a few mouths full and fell back on to bread and jam!

I have been reading the pilot book about Albania generally.  I found a sentence which said it was essential to get your passport stamped.  But when ours were returned yesterday they had no stamps in them.  We saw the agent this morning and asked about it.  He says they no longer stamp passports in.  He insists we are in the system and there will be no problem.  He is supposed to be a recommended agent by both the pilot book and the Cruising Association, so I guess we have to accept what he says.  He says we can get a stamp when we leave.

The plan today is to see the Archeological site at Butrint.  It is a World Heritage site and a must do.  It is about 20 miles down the coast and there is a bus which goes there from near the port.  Richard in his travels this morning found the bus stop and we were told the times it ran by the agent.  So off we went.  The bus came and from the start it was jammed packed.  We were very lucky to get any seats.  We couldn’t work out how to pay.  The driver didn’t take money and everyone just piled in and sat down.  Eventually a little girl came around and asked for payment.  It was 100 Leke each, about 85 pence!  It took an hour to get there and was quite an experience going around narrow streets in a large bus jammed with people.  But we got to the site without mishap. 

Of course by the time we got there as usual we are sightseeing at Mad Dogs and Englishmen time!  But it was very interesting and large.  It started as a small settlement after the Trojan wars and then became a large outpost of the Roman empire under Caesar and Augustus.  Later it became a major Byzantine city, followed by being a Venetian outpost and finally taken over by the Ottoman empire under Ali Pasha.  So there is a lot of history there.  The most spectacular sight is a Byzantine Baptistery with an intact mosaic floor.  It is on all the brochures and postcards.  We were pleasantly surprised to see it because the explanation said that they cover the mosaics to protect them most of the year, but they were open to see today.

We were there for a couple of hours and managed to find and catch the bus back to the city.  By now it was getting really hot.  It was also quite late, so we decided to have a late snack and cold drinks on the sea front.  We did a lot of walking and were very hot and tired.  So we have spent the late afternoon on the boat in the shade trying to recover.


We go off tomorrow, to another site.  It is an anchor job, so probably won’t have internet access, but then who knows!

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