Republika e Shqipërisë
22 06 2008is but a twenty-minute hydrofoil or hour-long ferry journey from Corfu Town. Never being one to turn turn down the opportunity of visiting a former Communist state, and despite the fact that Tirana is and was a step too far to travel, Saranda was added as a day trip to the recent sojourn in Corfu. So much so, that even getting up at 7am was not too problematic.
Saranda is a smallish port and resort at the southern end of the Albanian Riviera - its population has doubled in the last 5-10 years as the tourist trade has taken off - as far as our guide could tell, it is most popular with Greeks, Italians and other former Communists (although it may just be that they want to leave their resorts to Westerners and holiday somewhere cheap). In Saranda there is nary a sign of Communist influence - the city has expanded massively since the early 90’s, and is still doing so - indeed, all of the new building are hotels, and the town is expnding both vertically and horizontally to encompass both the foothills and the whole waterfront of the bay. The hotels lend the resort the air of Spain in the 80’s, or Malta or Cyprus a little later, as characterless concrete hotels in myriad pastel shades spring up. The only hint at the Communist past was, to my eyes at least, a single restaurant on the promenade that resembled so many ‘Houses of steelworkers/tram drivers/any other profession’ to be found in any for Soviet town. Beyond that, everything was very new, Western, and typically Mediterranean - a mass of photos can be found here.
Following a quick coffee, we were taken out to visit Butrint(i), a huge archaelogical site comprising Ancient Greek, Roman and later remains that are undergoing excavation and conservation, and is a UNESCO world heriatge site. Anyway, it is an incredible place to visit - I am no expert on these things, so please take a look at the site and visit if you ever get a chance.
The journey to and from Butrint was also fascinating, as I had precisely no idea what to expect from the Albanian countryside. I knew it was mountainous, and that it would probably be lacking greenery, being a Southern Mediterranean country. It is dry, and mountainous, although we only travelled through 20km of foothills, but it also full of lakes - in fact, water is one of the major exports, along with freshwater shellfish - there were large mussel nurseries in both of the enormous lake we sped past.
The villages on the route (I would say suburbs, but Saranda is not yet quite such a large conurbation) were also full of spanking new houses and construction work - many Albanian expats are now returning home from Western Europe and building themselves either homes or holiday homes in the area - a sizeable villa within 20km of Saranda can be built for around 80,000 EURO - including the purchase of the land. And all the taxis are Mercedes (again, in a bizarre fusion of post-Communism and 1980’s style Mediterranea). In caught a glimpse of just two multicoloured redecorated bunkers (rather disappointingly) as we passed, and they were slowly being buried in the rubble from the new developments, and the only statue with a vaguely Hoxha-esque hue had a newly-painted Albanian flag without the golden star, and was most likely a memorial to WW2.
So, would I go again? I think Saranda (and the rest of the Riviera) needs to be taken separately from the rest of the country, much as any area with enormous income from tourism cannot be seen to be indicative of either Spain, Italy, or indeed Poland or the Czech Republic. I am sure Tirana seems a world away from the palm trees and promenade, and the towns and village further north and deeper into the country can only begin to imagine the standard of living on Saranda. But I am pleased to have seen it before all vestiges of the past have been erased and it becomes another (albeit cheaper and newer) resort-by-numbers.
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