By James Podles
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I started my new job at a radio station in the southern town of Saranda last winter: I knew that the town was near Greece, and that the beaches were nice. Not even sure what the weather would be like, I packed everything from t-shirts to a Canadian-issue winter jacket (I even optimistically brought a bathing suit). As it turned out, winters in Saranda are cold only by Mediterranean standards: even in the middle of winter, the days are mostly warm and sunny, while at night, temperatures drop but rarely even approach the freezing point. The winter’s snowfall consisted of a barely-noticeable dusting one morning in February, which soon melted under the afternoon sun.
Thawing out in the Mediterranean sun, and not having much to do during the daytime (I worked from seven p.m. until midnight), I set out to explore the town and its surroundings. Saranda is laid out on a sort of amphitheatre-shaped plan, with the “stage,” as it were, being the bowl-shaped harbor. A series of streets runs parallel to the curved pedestrian-only beachfront esplanade, connected to each other by broad stone stairways which run up the hillside. Most of the town’s hotels, restaurants, and bars sit on or near the waterfront. The town is currently undergoing a massive construction boom, with hotels and apartment buildings springing up all over (there are rumours of even more ambitious plans, like those for a semi-underwater museum; a new marina next to the five-star Hotel Butrint; and the extension of the boardwalk to seven and a half kilometers).
Winter in Saranda was nothing if not laid-back: the beachside clubs and bars are quieter if not deserted, while the open-air movie theatre sits empty (things should be more lively this year, as the University of Tirana has just opened a tourism management school in the town). Still, don’t expect the same crowded party atmosphere you’d find in the summer (many days, I had the entire town beach to myself).
Saranda
Even a quick look around the town revealed a wealth of archeological treasures. Around the seaside boardwalk, the remains of fourth-century fortifications can be seen, while in the town centre, a joint Albanian-Israeli excavation has revealed the mosaicked remains of a fifth-century synagogue (the excavations have slowed after archeologists discovered that one of the synagogue’s main halls now runs under the town’s main street). One waterfront bar even incorporates what was once a Roman bathhouse into its basement lounge. Also near the esplanade, a recently excavated Roman villa is preserved inside a glass-fronted building. The excavation is theoretically open to the public, but I had absolutely no luck in finding anyone who could unlock the doors for me. Still, you can see quite a bit of the mosaic- and fresco-covered interior through the large front windows.
One windy afternoon I decided to climb up to L쬵resi Castle, which sits on a peak overlooking Saranda. After taking several wrong turns on the way up the mountain, I finally reached the 16th-century Ottoman fortifications by abandoning the signless roads and just taking the most direct path to the top (which I think was a goat trail). Once used as a military base for the Sultan Suleiman’s campaigns into Greece, the castle retained its strategic importance into the 20th century: concrete bunkers dot the mountainside, and a Second World War-era artillery piece stands just outside of the castle walls. From the top of the battlements, I could see all of Saranda harbour (I suddenly recognized the vantage point of all of the town’s postcards), across the Vivari channel, and into Corfu.
A Monastery and a Bottomless Spring
Another day, I took a side trip to the nearby monastery of St. Nicolas (in the village of Mesopotam, 15 kilometers from Saranda) and the Blue Eye national park. At St. Nicolas, much of the monastic complex lies in ruins, but the church is still standing and is still in use. The interior walls of the church were originally covered with late Byzantine frescoes, which, unfortunately, were plastered over at some point. Conservationists, having recently begun the slow, painstaking work of removing the plaster without damaging the underlying paintings, have exposed a relatively small area of fresco, which offers a glimpse of the former and potential future grandeur of the church. The exterior, although also in serious need of restoration, is covered in relief carvings of mythological animals. The remnants of the surrounding walls hint at how imposing the fortifications must once have been: a surviving section (which includes what was the bell tower) is nearly ten meters high.
Near the monastery is the Blue Eye (Syri i Kalter) national park, the star attraction of which is a series of springs, which join together underground and bubble up to form a wide, perfectly blue, perfectly clear pool, surrounded by a grove of ancient trees. Supposedly, it’s impossible to drown in the Blue Eye, as the force of the rising water is greater than the force of a sinking body (no one, on the February morning I visited, could reassure me about hypothermia, so I stayed out of the water). No one’s really sure how deep the spring’s source lies: even scuba divers carrying weights have only been able to descend about forty meters into the pool before being pushed up to the surface.
Butrinti
Later in my stay, I took a side trip to the ancient town of Butrinti. From Saranda, it takes about half an hour of driving past scrub-covered foothills and shimmering mussel farms (and through a herd of cows, on the way back) to reach the archeological site. Unique in the way it encapsulates thousands of years of Mediterranean history, Butrint’s excavations include an amphitheatre, baths, and acropolis, as well as a more (relatively speaking) modern basilica and baptistery (the mosaic floor of which was unfortunately covered with plastic sheeting for conservation reasons). Besides the major edifices, countless smaller buildings have been discovered, among them a Venetian watchtower; Roman baths; a temple to Aesclepius, the Greek god of healing; and the remains of an aqueduct which once connected the city centre to its suburbs. And even with all of this, at least eighty percent of the city remains unexcavated. The search for the villa of Titus Pomponius Atticus, a close friend of the Roman orator Cicero, is still underway.
The greatest thing about Butrinti, at least for someone raised on a cultural diet of guided tours, overprotective docents, and climate-controlled museums, is its total openness for exploration. Unlike similar sites in Greece and Turkey, Butrint lacks the ropes, railings, and security guards meant to keep tourists from taking pieces of the ruins home with them (not that I did). Visiting Butrinti feels more like an exploration than a tour: but for the aforementioned baptistery floor, the site is more or less completely accessible. The lack of signs and Plexiglas does more than let you walk unhindered through the remains of the city: it removes the filters that are usually placed between ancient archeological sites and their modern-day viewers, bringing a certain authenticity to the experience, a verisimilitude that’s missing from other such excavations.
Saranda’s distance from Tirana (the trip takes about five hours by car and slightly longer by bus) makes it too remote for a day trip but within easy reach for a weekend visit. Once in the town, public buses run from the main square to Butrinti, with a stop at the Hotel Butrint; Mesopotam is a short drive away; and L쬵resi is about 45 minutes’ walk from the town centre.
