3 Days in Sarandë

Start where the town starts: the seafront. Sarandë was almost nothing a century ago. Until the Balkan Wars it was little more than a harbor, and in 1912, right after Albanian independence, it had 110 inhabitants. The name Sarandë only replaced the local Skelë in the early 19th century, taken from a nearby Byzantine monastery of the Forty Saints. During the Italian occupation of World War II, Mussolini renamed the town Porto Edda after his eldest daughter, and Italy had already paid for harbor improvements in the interwar years.

Walk the promenade from the ferry port to the info center near the Molo. In summer the pebble beach is a wall of sunbeds. In November it's the opposite, and the gulf looks better empty. Stop for a coffee and look across the water: that low shape on a clear day is Corfu.

Two minutes inland, at the corner of Rruga Skënderbeu and Rruga Vangjel Pandi, a fenced patch of floor is the ruin of what's believed to be Albania's first synagogue, built in the 4th or 5th century, probably by the descendants of Jewish captives who arrived on this coast around 70 CE. A church replaced it in the 6th century. It's a small ruin and mostly floor, but it tells you Onchesmos was a real port with a mixed population, not a village.

Five minutes away, the Museum of Archaeology is one block behind the harbor and its star is a Roman mosaic floor kept where it was found. The collection is small, Illyrian, Greek and Roman finds, and it takes 30 minutes. The opening hours are the weak spot: the listings show mornings and evenings with a long break, and they disagree. If it's shut, the mosaic can be seen through the glass doors.

Sarandë is the best place on this coast to eat seafood in winter, because its restaurants stay open all year. Fresh fish is on most menus, and the Butrint lagoon just south is Albania's main source of mussels. Walk a block or two off the front, where prices drop.

A good plate is grilled sea bream or a bowl of mussels with bread and a salad. Cards work in some restaurants but not all, so keep lek.

The town is named after this place. The Byzantine monastery of the Forty Saints, the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, stood on the hill above the bay by the 6th century, and the Greek Agioi Saranta became Sarandë. It was wrecked in 1944, by German artillery or Allied aircraft depending on the account, and then became a military base under communism. Today only parts of the church walls stand, and local Greek Orthodox visitors still leave flowers. Don't expect much more than that.

The road up is steep and narrow, and there's little at the top, so bring water. It's close to Lëkurësi, which makes it a sensible stop on the way to the castle.

Lëkurësi Castle was built in 1537 by Suleiman the Magnificent to hold off the Venetians on Corfu, with a garrison of 220 men. It's almost square, with two round corner towers, and from its terrace you see Sarandë, the Butrint lagoon, the Ksamil islets and the Corfu strait at once. In 1878 Albanian locals besieged Greek rebels who had taken refuge inside it, and won.

Arrive an hour before sunset, which falls around 16:30 in November. The restaurant inside the walls is the usual place for coffee or a meal, but reviews of the food are mixed and winter hours aren't published, so treat it as a viewpoint with a possible dinner.

For dinner stay in town and order something that won't be on a summer tourist menu: tavë kosi, lamb and rice baked under a layer of yogurt and egg until it sets like a savory custard. It's one of Albania's national dishes and a good cold-weather meal. Pair it with a fërgesë to start, peppers, tomatoes and curd cheese baked in olive oil, and finish with a small glass of raki.

Sarandë's restaurants are open all year, unlike most of Ksamil's, so you'll find several to choose from on and behind Rruga Naim Frashëri. Ask your hotel which kitchens are cooking tavë kosi that night.

Butrint is the reason most people come to this corner of Albania, and the reason for the UNESCO listing in 1992. A Greek city, then a Roman colony, then a Byzantine bishopric, it was abandoned in the Middle Ages after an earthquake flooded much of it, and the marsh around it did the rest. Virgil made it a stop on the journey of Aeneas after Troy, with the seer Helenus as its founder. In 1959 Khrushchev visited the ruins and suggested to Enver Hoxha that this lagoon should become a Soviet submarine base. It never did.

Walk the loop: the Greek theatre, covered in inscriptions about freed slaves; the sanctuary of Asclepius; the Roman baths; the 6th-century baptistery, one of the largest early Christian buildings of its type, whose mosaic is usually covered with sand; the Great Basilica; and the carved Lion Gate. Most of it is under trees, which is why it works in rain and heat. The museum on the acropolis is included in the ticket. Go early: in winter you may have long stretches of path to yourself.

Beside the site, the Vivari Channel connects Lake Butrint to the sea, and a small cable ferry crosses it next to the entrance. On the far side stands a small Venetian triangular fortress, where the Venetians moved the administration of the area in 1572 after the ancient acropolis was abandoned, next to the fish weirs that supplied Corfu for centuries. About 2 km west, at the mouth of the channel, Ali Pasha's Castle began as a fortified estate and was strengthened around 1804 by Ali Pasha of Ioannina.

Walk to the water's edge and look: that's enough in November to understand why Butrint worked as a port, with the sea, the lagoon and Corfu all in reach. The castle at the channel's mouth is a separate trip, so ask locally before you plan on it.

The Butrint lagoon is Albania's main mussel-farming area, and since an EU export ban in 1994 most of the catch is eaten at home. So a winter lunch of mussels here isn't a compromise.

At least four restaurants in Ksamil stay open all year, so ask your driver or hotel which is serving that day. Order the mussels with lemon, a salad and bread.

Ksamil was built as a village in 1966 and only became a resort when Albania opened up. The small beaches sit opposite the four rocky islets of Ksamil, in Butrint National Park, which you can swim to in summer. The sand is white and the water is the turquoise that fills every Riviera postcard, and on a sunny day it still looks good in November.

But be honest about what you're getting. Most restaurants and sunbed concessions close by November, the boats to the islets mostly stop, and the building boom has left half-finished blocks all over the hill. Go for a walk on the shore, not a swim: the sea is about 19°C. If the weather is clear you'll understand why people come back in June.

Paradise Beach, on the coast road on the west side of Ksamil, is the name of both a beach and the restaurant lounge next to it. In winter the lounge and sunbeds are likely shut, but the cove is still worth a look when the sun hits it. Mirror Beach (Plazhi i Pasqyrave) is on the way back, on the Sarandë-Ksamil road, roughly 4 km north of Ksamil village. It's small and quiet, more pebbles than sand.

You come for the color of the water and the quiet, not for a swim in November.

Finish with the local ritual. Raki is the national spirit, usually made from grapes, plums or blackberries. A glass is not a shot: sip it, with a plate of meze, on the seafront until the lights come on over the bay.

The Blue Eye is a karst spring near the village of Muzinë where water rises from a hole so deep that divers have gone down 50 m without finding the bottom. It feeds the Bistricë river, discharges around 18,400 liters a second, and sits in a 180-hectare protected area of oak and sycamore. The clear water shows its blue from more than 50 m down, hence the name: the "eye".

The walk in is the part nobody mentions: from the barrier it's about 2 km to the pool, 20-30 minutes on foot, or a small tourist train for a few euros. Swimming is banned, though some visitors ignore it. The water stays cold all year, about 10-13°C, so you don't miss much. Go in the morning, and pick a sunny day if you can: the blue is strongest then.

Gjirokastër climbs a hillside under its castle, and almost all of its old houses have stone roofs, which is why Albanians call it the City of Stone. UNESCO inscribed it in 2005 (Berat joined in 2008), and more than 500 houses are protected as monuments. Enver Hoxha was born here in 1908, and the town got a museum-town status partly because of it. The novelist Ismail Kadare was born here too, and Chronicle in Stone is the book about the city.

The old bazaar was first built in the 17th century and rebuilt after a fire in the 19th, and the Gjirokastër Mosque, from 1757, dominates it. The bus terminal is at the bottom of the hill, so you'll need a short taxi ride or a steep walk to reach the old town.

Gjirokastër has one dish of its own: qifqi, small rice patties made from cooked rice, eggs and dried mint, fried in a special pan with many cavities. They're served as a starter or a light lunch.

Look for a restaurant in the bazaar area with locals at the tables. Order a few qifqi, a salad and some local white cheese.

Zekate House is the grandest of Gjirokastër's tower houses, built in 1811-1812 for Beqir Zeko, an administrator in Ali Pasha's government. It stands on the hillside west of the bazaar, a 15-20 minute climb up steep cobbles. Go inside to see how a wealthy Ottoman-era family lived upstairs, above the stone ground floor.

If the climb feels like too much, the Ethnographic Museum in the old town costs about 200 ALL (2 EUR) and includes a guided tour. Skenduli House, a renovated traditional house, is the other one to pick. Hours are loose at all three, so go early.

At 336 m above sea level, Gjirokastër Fortress has five towers, a clock tower and a museum of captured weapons. Ali Pasha of Tepelenë expanded it after 1812, King Zog's government enlarged the prison in 1932, and the communists used it for political prisoners. A captured US Air Force plane still sits there as a trophy of the communist regime's fight against the West.

Underneath the castle is an underground bunker from the Cold War, which charges a separate fee (reports range from 200 to 400 ALL). The legend of Princess Argjiro, who jumped from the walls with her child rather than be taken, inspired a poem by Kadare. Walk the ramparts for the view over the valley and the old town, and plan on finishing before the 16:00 winter closing.