The Albanian Riviera

I am not sure why so many countries get to have their own “Riviera”, but Albania has one too. The beaches are mostly as good as many of those that we have seen in other Rivieras. We stayed for a week on the beach in the center of the town of Saranda, Albania, and didn’t do much that is worthy of a blog post. But, I need to write once a week for our “travel records” as well as showing my family where we are in the world. Get ready for some beach town pictures.

Our Airbnb was on the 6th floor of an an older condo building in the middle of everything. The building contained restaurants, bars, a mini-mart, and a bakery so we really didn’t need to leave. The beach was just a few steps away so we bought an umbrella and just carried our plastic chairs from our balcony down to the beach each day. The view from our balcony was also pretty good for about $60 per night. Albania is still very affordable for housing as well as for bars and restaurants.

To be honest, we weren’t complete beach bums all week. One day, we took the bus to the UNESCO ruins site of Butrint. We wandered around the ORS (Old Roman Shit) and other layers of civilizations for a hour or so. It was cool to see the familiar site of ruins right next to the water. It even had a small Roman theater.

After we got our fill of old history, we took the bus to the beach town of Ksamil. Our objective was to have another Albanian lunch, but this time overlooking the turquoise beaches of the Albanian Riviera. The popular beaches did not disappoint in Instagram beauty. Most of the beach chairs were already occupied even though we are still a couple of weeks away from high season. We were disappointed in the lack of public beaches in Ksamil, however the beaches are quite beautiful, with fine white sand and turquoise water. This town had covered every single beach with private chairs and sunbeds and charged for the privilege of using their beach. We have heard that this is becoming a problem all over Albania and locals are upset that chair paying tourists are taking away their beaches. Thankfully, our beach in Saranda is still public so we headed back home after lunch and taking some pics. Unlike the sandy beaches of Ksamil, the public beach in Saranda was more rocky/gravel, so there are certainly some tradeoffs.

It is now time to say goodbye to our new friend of Albania but we get to say hello to our old friend of Greece. Next week is more beach time on the island of Corfu!