A day late with this post as I had a few technical issues on the site. Thankfully I’m a pretty big time blogger and therefore never risk traveling without on-site IT support, so they had it sorted for me pretty quickly.

Early start in the morning for our last swim at the beach before we head off inland for a month. Ksamil has become a bit of a resort town so all the beaches are privatized. Most want at least $30 just to enter which really gets up my nose. However, the boys manning the beaches love a sleep-in as much as the next European so we were packing up our spot on the most luxury beach just as the lads showed up to start demanding 1000’s of LEK. Silver lining of early bird children!

This was the only beach we came across with soft sand. The water was surprisingly warm given it was only 19 c out when I jumped in!

I don’t speak much Albanian but thought this was a pretty good street name!


Next we set out to the Butrint National Archeological Park. Said to have been inhabited since pre-historic times. Occupied by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and more recently the prolific Ali Pasha!

If she didn’t risk sudden death did she even have fun?

Noelle went back to look for popcorn.

Kids were just as thrilled with the turtles as the Roman amphitheater.

This marked the end of our tour of the Alabanian Riviera. We went and packed up at our bnb and set off for the “Blue Eye” which was  an hours drive inland. There’s actually two of them in Albania, the other is north of Tirana. They’re natural springs, the depth of this one is unknown. Divers have gotten as deep as 50m. The water is about 11 c so fairly invigorating! I would have loved to brave swimming but not sure Amadeus would have appreciated the 2k walk back to the car strapped against a freezing wet mother. Even getting ankle deep really took your breath away and our legs were all tingling for about 30 minutes afterwards!

Crystal clear water, even on a rainy day like this the colors were intensely vivid.

 

The drive from The Blue Eye to Gjirokaster was absolutely stunning. The stormy weather was very atmospheric but difficult to capture on an iPhone camera sadly. I did manage to snap one lightning fork though if you look closely.

Everyone was pretty famished after a big day sightseeing so we settled into a Taverna in Gjirokaster old town for a late lunch. We ordered Tave Kosi again which is an Albanian casserole of lamb cooked in yogurt and rice which we are loving and the Moussaka was very different from the Greek rendition. Gio loved his chicken soup.

Hard earned Gelato


First bath since Australia. It took 3 tanks of water to fill but overall a much more effective bathing experience than the shower situation over here.