Blue Seas and Ancient Ruins...Just Another Day at the Office

Saranda seafront
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July 28, 2008

Saranda and Butrint, Albania

(Matt)

A morning ritual in Macedonia and Albania was repeated in Saranda...searching in vain to find breakfast. It turns out that, for us at least, the hardest thing about traveling in the Balkans has been the lack of food, especially breakfast. If Albanians eat breakfast at all, it is not anything different from what they eat the rest of the time, and most restaurants do not serve food before lunch. From what we can tell, Albanians just have espresso, cigarettes, and water for breakfast because that is all we have see in front of people at the restaurants in the mornings.

Theater at Butrint
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We finally found a place that claimed to have breakfast, and it was inedible and nothing like breakfast. So we too had espresso and water for breakfast but paid for a full meal.

After some debate with Amber about whether or not to leave the cushy coastal city of Saranda and travel to Butrint, which before we left was unfairly characterized by her as "just another ancient city," I finally talked her into it. And I think she'll agree that it was a GREAT ancient city, and who can get burned out on touring Greco-Roman cities?....not me.

Butrint wall around the city
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(Amber)

It was a low moment, okay? I was tired of being on the bus and couldn't get excited about leaving our seaside retreat and hopping on another bus in the heat. But he's right...it was awesome.

(Matt)

I think Butrint has far and away been the highlight of Albania for me, even better than Gjirokastra. The ancient city of Butrint, being contained on a small Island in an inlet along the Ionian Sea, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with ruins dating back to at least the 8th Century BC.

Butrint ruins
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The majority of the city's excavation took place between 1928 and 1939, and Butrint is about 70% beautiful nature walk through the island, which is surrounded by blue waters and mountains covered in olive trees, and 30% ancient ruins.

We sat along the ancient walls on the edge of the city and looked out at the surrounding valleys and waters and pictured the various conquering empires marching into Butrint and the battle between the fleets of the Normans and the Byzantines fought in the bay of Butrint. As the museum in the old Venetian castle stated, Butrint is really a microcosm of Mediterranean history, representing all its phases of development, the rise and fall of great empires that dominated the region.

Matt at Butrint
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For me the most interesting ruins were those from the Greek Hellenistic Period in the 4th and 3rd Centuries BC, the Roman Period in the 2nd Century AD, the Christian Period in the 6th Century AD, and the Venetian Period in the 14th and 16th Centuries AD.

The best thing about Butrint, however, besides the excellent state of preservation of the ruins and the lovely forested nature walk around the island, was the lack of other tourists. Despite Saranda being a popular place for Albanians to vacation, Butrint is mostly only an attraction to Western European tourists and foreign backpackers like us, which are few and far between. During our 4-hour trip to Butrint, we saw only 8 other people in the ancient city, all from various Western European countries. It was like our own private ancient city, making Butrint, Albania the opposite of Ephesus, Turkey. Butrint, at least on the day we were there, had no tours or tour groups, and there was only a public bus to get there. [See update below]

Amber touring Butrint
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I love history and hiking, and it was the perfect afternoon. And we actually came close to missing Butrint because of our negative experience in Ephesus, which would have been a huge mistake.

The highlights of the Butrint ruins are as follows:

• Sanctuary dedicated to the god of healing, Asclepius, 4th Century BC.
• Theater, originally built in the 3rd Century BC, but rebuilt and expanded by the Romans in the 5th Century AD.
• The Great Basilica, an early Christian church constructed in the 6th Century AD.
  

  Amber with statue at Butrint Museum
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• The acropolis built on a hill in the 8th Century BC.
• The Venetian tower and the Venetian castle built between the 15th and 16th Centuries AD and the 14th and 16th Centuries, respectively.
• The Lion Gate built during the Middle Ages.

Update: The next day, while preparing to board a ferry to the island of Corfu in Greece, a huge cruise ship pulled into the bay of Saranda and dropped anchor. Two boats began shuttling cruise ship passengers to 4 waiting tour buses headed to Butrint for guided tours. Additionally, the hydrofoil ferry from Corfu brought to Saranda day-trip passengers from an even larger cruise ship moored at the Greek island, 20 minutes away. The day-tippers' itinerary included Butrint. So basically we just got lucky on the day we went and had it completely to ourselves. While Butrint and Saranda do not have much in the way of cruise ship tourists, there are some apparently coming from Greece. We were in Saranda 3 days, and the cruise ship arrived there only on the last day.

Fishing boats around Butrint ruins
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