Beach Town in Wind-Down: Two Weeks in Sarandë

And just like that, a month of Italy is behind us.

After racing through Italy, we needed a place to wind down, but couldn’t decide where that should be. Masha’s friend Sagita (with whom we stayed with in Paris) to the rescue! She happens to also have a condo in Sarandë across from the beach that was just languishing empty. Sarandë is in the south of Albania, where the Adriatic meets the Ionian Sea, bordering Greece and just a stone’s throw from Corfu. Sagita kindly offered us this view into her world — and we were happy to oblige. (I should note here that on these travels, I have been very grateful for the privilege a US passport grants us. We can get in to sooo many countries Visa-free for months. This privilege has allowed us amazing flexibility with minimal red tape. Deciding to go to Greece and Albania two days beforehand is just one such example).

Mike had wanted to see what it’s like to live in a beach town, and he certainly got his wish with Sarandë. Now, October is the shoulder season in Sarandë — and that definitely changes the vibe from its peak season with bustling restaurants and beaches. The city’s stable population of around 30,000 reportedly soars to over 200 thousand in the summer. But as the last of the visitors leave, it’s like being the last few customers at a bar. The music gets turned down, the lights are turned up, and people start collecting their things. So even though the weather is perfect and beaches not crowded, one may start wondering, why are we still here?

Or so it felt initially, before we met the local and expat community, discovered turquoise beaches, got seriously into jiu-jitsu, jet skied in the sea — and generally created our own vibe.

In most ways, we really lucked out with the apartment, as these were our views from balcony and building for two weeks. Thank you, Sagita!

Moreover, being on the east edge of the town we had a view of the sunset. How do you survive a gorgeous sunset every single night? For the first half of the stay, the majority of our pictures are literally just sunsets — or us taking pictures of sunsets. Here’s a taste —

The apartment also had a great cafe right below it with an entertaining vibe and ocean side tables offered an amazing view. We would go there almost every day, morning or evening, to work or enjoy the sunset with $1 wine

Alya became a true loyal patron herself by independently (while we watch from our balcony) walking down there every day for a glass of iced chocolate and reading in an egg-shaped swing chair.

There was a minor downside to having the cafe below us. In much of Europe, cafes turn into discotheques at night (not that people dance, despite what the blaring music would lead you to believe). So the first night, we had a hard time going to sleep before 1am, instead bouncing along to 2000’s disco hits alternating with Celentano ballads. Italian and American music is ubiquitous here. But, luckily, with the general wind-down, the music got progressively quieter, and ended earlier throughout our stay (the cafe was actually set to close for the winter two days after we left).

Beaches

Life at Sarandë centers around the beaches, particularly the public beach and boardwalk that goes around it. In the afternoon, umbrellas dot the beach as a good chunk of the city population descends on the water,

while in the evening, everyone still left in town comes out to stroll the promenade and enjoy waterfront restaurants

Aside from two large public beaches, there are a multitude of small private beaches lining the town’s shores, charging $5-$20 for entry. Some have bars, restaurants and even jet ski rentals. With their turquoise calm water, they do make for pretty pictures

Unfortunately, they are all rocky beaches, and rather than water-caressed small pebbles, here the rocks can be quite sharp, so getting in and out is not a happy experience without water shoes. But we were determined to find the best beaches of the area, with both turquoise water and sand, so a few days in, we took a cruise to Kroreza beach, which looked the prettiest of the nearby beaches on google maps

Now, adverts are not known for their veracity, but this was pretty close. The water was clear as glass

Between the near-sand pebbled beach, the grilled fish and incredible pork kabobs, and a melodious on-board playlist, Ari’s tour was fantastic (post us a comment if you want his info)

Along the way we also stopped at other swimming holes with even more brilliant green water and incredible rock formations

and were struck by the myriads (over 100k in all in Albania) cold-war bunkers dotting the shore

There is a whole Riviera to explore so, naturally, I didn’t stop with just this boat tour, but that’s a subject for another post.

Marini!

The favorite hang out place for the expat community in Sarandë is Marini. In some ways, it was a blessing that it was closed for vacation for the first week that we were there, otherwise we might have just gone there every day the whole time, and not explored much else of the town! Once Marini opened, we would regularly meet there with Josh & Kehau, as well as Jason & Celeste, intentionally or not. As Jason said, “we gave up cooking breakfast at home — it’s cheaper, faster, and better to just eat here!”

The first time we met Josh, Kehau, and their four kids in real life was at a Jujitsu class Kehau recommended to us. This turned out to be pretty much the only English-speaking activity for kids in Sarandë. And while the teacher did speak a lot more to his local students in Albanian, over her four classes Alya learned a bunch of self-defense moves that she would then practice on Mike

She also got a lot of confidence from sparring with the local students who, despite studying it for much longer, had their hands full with her, to the exasperation of the teacher. Sounded like he was shouting “Have I taught you nothing in one year? She has been here three times and she mopped the floor with you!”

Because there wasn’t much sight-seeing to do, and really we were in Sarandë just to relax, we could afford to spend days just hanging out with people, roaming from a marathon brunch at Marini, to beach, to another favorite lunch haunt of ours — Haxhi — to hanging out at our place with face paint, chess tournaments and origami master classes

Another day, we decided to do a cocktail night at Josh and Kehau’s. Turns out, limes are not so easy to come by in the hill-markets of Sarandë. And ice? Foggetaboudit! After several promises from the shop keepers that “ice will come in 20 minutes” we had to stick up a bar for a bag of questionable ice. All for the greater good. Luckily, jars make good shakers and bottled lime juice works in a pinch. In the end, the kiwi gimlet was a hit.

Our stay in Albania was a welcome change of pace and felt good to connect to other travels for more than a day. When it was time to go to our next destination, we were sad to leave behind our new friends and the peaceful warm vibe of the town. As we’ve realized, we are moving much faster than most worldschooling families… and while that increases our number of experiences this year, it also creates a feeling of rushing somewhere most of the time. The pause in Sarandë was just what we had needed.

The Silver Castle

Aside from beaches there are several well-trafficked tourist sites near Sarandë. There’s the Blue Eye, Lekuresi Castle, Butrint National Park (Greek ruins) and Gjirokastër/Gjirokastra, among others. Doing our best to take it easy, we limited ourselves to one site — Gjirokastra, the Silver Castle in translation, one of the biggest castles in the Balkans and a Unesco site. Unlike the Ljubljana castle, which was used to defend against Ottoman incursions, this one was actually captured and used defensively for a long time by the Ottoman empire.

Gjirokastra refers to both the castle itself, and the town that now surrounds it, over which it looms. It’s sometimes called the town of a thousand windows based on its Ottoman buildings climbing up the hill to the castle. This town, of course, is all about the tourists, but it is still cute and has some delicious traditional food if you know where to look.

Among the various generic shops, you also get to see amazing artisans working on their craft right in front of you. If only we weren’t limited on luggage space!

The castle itself was built between the 12th and 13th centuries. It is massive and with a completely walkable roof

There are a number of distinct museums within that require separate tickets (an ethnographic museum, a WWII gun museum), but on the ground floor you’ll find the most impressive exhibits — a grim hall of WWII cannons and a tiny Fiat tank

Seeing historical sites in Albania is an interesting contrast to Italy. In Italy, “old times” is before Christ. In Albania, “old times” means before communism. Thus, one of the points of interest is the houses of the town with lower floors done in Ottoman style and the modern upper floors

This was our only trip away from the coast, and it also gave us a chance to see the backcountry and the very impressive Nemërçka mountain range that separates it from the inland plains and reaches nearly eight thousand feet in elevation.

Albania from the locals’ point of view

But just as interesting as the castle was hearing our guide’s perspective on Albania. Since for this private tour we had Marjo to ourselves for the whole day, we got an extensive account of what life is like there. For one, although the communist dictatorship fell in early 90s, its echoes are everywhere. According to him, people are stuck in a fearful, bureaucratic mentality, afraid to take initiative, afraid to venture. One annoying example of this, which also affects livability here for tourists, is the taxi situation.

Sarandë is spread along 3-4 miles of shore, but transportation is largely lacking. Buses are rare and apparently quite unpredictable. Bike and scooter rentals, like those we saw in Ljubljana, are non-existent. Taxis are, on the other hand, plentiful. But in a classic communist society twist, they are mandated to charge an absurd $10 minimum for any ride, even a few minutes. Naturally, they have very few takers. As a result, as you walk toward downtown, you see clutches of taxi drivers passively standing around smoking, all… day… long.

On the other hand, may be the taxis are just a front for the mafia... It’s pure speculation, but not entirely unfounded. As Renata was driving us from the ferry port to our apartment, she casually said, as we drove past this scene,

“oh, there was some disagreement, so someone blew up that place recently, its not so pretty” We didn’t probe this further, but I don’t think she was kidding.

Ari, our boat tour guide, had some thoughts specifically on the tourism industry. He had lived in Western Europe, but came back a few years earlier for the more relaxed vibe in Sarandë. He said, shaking his head in dismay, the tourism industry is still very young and infrastructure isn’t good yet. In the summer, when swarms of tourists descend on the town, logistics are very frustrating because of the general lax attitude. He has tour after tour booked, but there are constant delays — for gas, for spare parts, everything. I saw this in the local car rental shops, which were rather by the seat of their pants operations. “In 2-3 years it will grow up,” Ari added, “I recommend waiting until then.” This jived well with Masha’s observation that Google Maps was yet to be right about any business’s open hours… it was quite normal to show up to a 1pm opening to find out it’s moved to 3pm today or that the place closed for the season.

Hospitality is the rule

Regardless of any logistical hiccups, the spirit of hospitality, kindness and welcome in the Albanians we encountered would be very hard to beat. Sagita gave us this little piece of heaven to rest in for two weeks without being asked, Renata picked us up at the opposite end of town and spent weeks answering our endless Whatsapp questions, Arjon - our Jiu Jitsu teacher - gave Alya tons of extra attention and encouragement, and Gina - the owner of Marini was endlessly kind and accepting of our rowdy bunch and the need to constantly adjust and re-adjust tables as we gathered. And here is another experience, which we honestly don’t think could have happened in many other places in the world.

Mike decided to go jet skiing. So, we went to rent one from a beach bar near our house. The man renting it to us asked if we were both riding, and Masha quietly slinked off to the side… having little desire to tip over in the water and have to hang out in the waves while someone came to get her. “You are scared,” he concluded. He watched as Mike rode fearlessly for his 15 minutes, which cost us a whopping $30. As he stepped up to take the jet ski from Mike, he looked at me (Masha) and said “OK, now you! I have a girlfriend named Masha. Ukrania women are fierce warriors! So come — no afraid!” When you put it that way… not wanting to prove him wrong, I went! What followed was at least 15 minutes of a ride on the open water, and then my taking over and driving the jet ski myself.

The whole time he was yelling over the roar of the motor and splash of the waves “You are not afraid of anything. Fierce warrior Masha!” He did this just because, with no compensation, out of kindness. The adrenaline blast kept me floating on cloud nine for days.