Road Trip to Sarande, Butrint and Gjirokastra

it's early Sunday morning.. Gracie and I are having coffee..a nice clear day, after the rains yesterday.
We had a great road trip to Sarande, the most southern seaport, with ferries across the Ionian sea to Corfu

Road Trip

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Stopped along the way in Vlore, at our favorite restaurant, Hotel Paradiso, for beer (of course), calamari for Mike and I, Pasta for Mark.. Gracie got lots of petting and looks from others who'd never seen a shiu-tzu.

Hotel Paradiso

Calamari and Greek Salad

Gracie at the Sea

The Resort

Nice stop before the long and winding, but beautiful road to Sarande. Here are some pics we took along the way.. stopping briefly at a construction site with plans for an incredible resort, mostly abandoned now with the economic downturn that hit everyone in the years of 06-08. We walked on to the property and imagined ourselves sipping martinis ( well I did) and watching the waves crash. Funny thing was that we forgot "this is Albania" and things just don't happen the way we think they should. Oh well, the guards drinking Raki at the entrance (with no teeth mind you) were having a good time.. probably imagining those silly Americans walking this empty place

View of Sarande from our Hotel

Spent a nice evening in Saranade, walking the boardwalk, pizza for dinner.. It's a funky resort town, quite empty now after the summer holidays, but the weather was nice and the views were fabulous of Corfu

local boat trips

We all got a decent night sleep and left by mid morning for Butrint, a fabulously old ( I mean 4th Century BC) settlement perched on a hill just north of Greece. According the classical mythology, Butrint was founded by exiles fleeing the fall of Troy. Over the many years it has been inhabited by every religion and peoples of the region. Mark and Mike were able to tell you "who" built each wall, based on the design, usage of rocks and whether they were the good or bad guys.  I was just intriqued by all that is still left to be uncovered.  Here is a sampling of what we saw.

Retail Center (early Macy's???)

Tile Design

Mark taking pics

Theater

It soon began to rain pretty hard, but we did have a chance to go into the museum, small but an amazing collection

of artifacts uncovered from the region.
 There is a link to the Butrint National Park, which is now a World Heritage Site,but it doesn't work well,
so just google  "Butrint" and see some more pics
A muddy drive back to Sarande for cold beer and gorgeous sunset pics.. mine were the best

Sarande Sunset

More sunset

Mark had a few complaints about the Hotel Brilant, but Gracie managed to sleep pretty well.

Gracie in our bed.. no it wasn't a Love nest, just a nice place with silly blankets, which
we needed cause Mark cranked the air down to 18  C

Need I remind how the Europeans love dogs and she was allowed everywhere.

For more in depth explanations of all this old stuff... go to Mark's blog, http://www.kickedinthebalkans.blogspot.com/
You can also find him under the link Albania Travel http://www.albanianewschannel.com/
thanks to our friend Lem...