[Apr. 2024] On this tour of Albania, we were scheduled to stay two nights in the seaside town of Saranda.
It was one of the destinations I was looking forward to, imagining a wonderful town where you can enjoy the beautiful Adriatic Sea.
We were going to have a lot of free time here.
It is right across from the Greek island of Corfu, and you can make a day trip there.
However, when we arrived, Saranda was a dirty town with ugly hotels standing in a disorderly manner.
Albania has suddenly become a popular travel destination, and I understand that infrastructure development is progressing rapidly, but it would be counterproductive to ruin the original beauty of the land.
It seems that people who want to make a fast profit are still not aware of this, and are frantically building tourist facilities.
Our accommodation was a hotel called Saranda International, located quite far from the centre of town.
It cost 7 euros to take a taxi to the centre, but there was a construction boom around there too.
We walked around a bit, but was disappointed to see that there were only hotels and restaurants under construction.
We saw a nice looking cafe in the distance, and when we went closer, we saw that it was under construction and the music was being played for workers.
So we gave up that area and took a taxi to the centre of town, where the promenade along the sea is.
There was nothing special about the promenade, so we just walked along the sea.
I didn’t get the impression that the sea was particularly beautiful.
Well, if there was one good thing, it was that we had seafood here which we hadn’t had for a while.
At the restaurant where the tour took us for lunch, we had seafood soup, salad, and seafood pasta.
Each of them tasted a little different from what we have in Italy, but they were still pretty good and I was satisfied.
We had free time for dinner, so we went to a Greek-style Taverna restaurant that caught our eye along the promenade.
Here, my husband and I shared tzatziki, fried anchovies, and grilled squid, and drank a half litre of house wine.
The tzatziki was too mild and unsatisfying, but the other two were delicious.
The portions were generous, too.
For dessert, we were served a panna cotta imitation free.
All together, it was very reasonable at €30.
Unusually for us, we left a small tip.
A word about taxis.
The driver on the way there asked for €10, but we negotiated it down to €7.
The driver on the way back insisted on €8, but when we said, “It was €7 when we came here,” he accepted.
It’s probably much cheaper for locals.
Although, maybe locals don’t take taxis.
As I wrote at the beginning, Albania was a destination I had wanted to visit for a long time.
Seeing the state of the town of Saranda, I realised that I really had come too late.
If I had come five years earlier, I’m sure my impression would have been different.
