Earthquake? No unauthorised building lol
Blue Eye Spring
Inside the 14th century Citadel
An American spy plane? When it landed in 1957, the communist regime claimed that the plane was spying on Albania and was forced down, though now it seems that the unlucky pilot simply got lost in bad weather and had to make an emergency landing.
We planned to have breakfast in the hotels restaurant but at 9am they were still shut (Albanians tent to be late risers) so we ventured into Gjiorkaster town instead. When we arrived in the town the place was heaving with people, cars were weaving in and out of traffic and horns were beeping in every direction-the place was crazy. We found parking although the guy charged us 8e for the day which seemed extortionate but with no prices displayed we didn’t know if we were being conned or not, and unfortunately he had the entire parking market tied up...welcome to the Albanian mafia.
The hunt for breakfast was on, many places were open but none were serving food so we had to settle for a liquid breakfast (minus the raki).
We had a walk around Gjirokaster, visited the castle and ate lunch ready for our journey to Blue eye springs. Blue eye springs used to be a favourite holiday spot among the communist elite and we could see the attraction, the spring pumps out 8.3 m3 of water per second, the water is crystal clear with various colours of vegetation and rocks. We had a walk around the spring and had a drink next to the springs which was extremely peaceful and relaxing. Bek wanted to go for a swim though Cass talked her out of putting her bikini on before we saw the spring as Albanians aren’t known for their care of the environment. When we got to the springs dge Bek put her foot in the 10oc water and said “I have swum in the English sea in winter but there is no way I am going in there!”
Later that day we arrived in Ksamil which we thought was going to be a nice seaside resort and where we planned to check into a hotel by the beach (thank god we didn’t book it in advance). Ksamil turned out to be a big dump of a town, numerous buildings had collapsed and many that hadn’t looked like the leaning Tower Of Pisa although people were still living inside. We thought there must have been an earthquake in the town but we used the internet and found out that the government tore down 200 buildings which were illegally erected and then expected the owners to clean the mess away, needless to say that the ruins will still be there in 200 years! We checked into a hotel anyway as we weren’t near to another town and the next day (the plan of laying by the beach for a few days was soon dismissed) we were heading south to a national park where there was no accommodation. At night we went for dinner and had mussels as we had driven past some mussel farms during the day .The food was lovely but we were both unwell afterwards, Bek says it’s put her off mussels for life.
The hunt for breakfast was on, many places were open but none were serving food so we had to settle for a liquid breakfast (minus the raki).
We had a walk around Gjirokaster, visited the castle and ate lunch ready for our journey to Blue eye springs. Blue eye springs used to be a favourite holiday spot among the communist elite and we could see the attraction, the spring pumps out 8.3 m3 of water per second, the water is crystal clear with various colours of vegetation and rocks. We had a walk around the spring and had a drink next to the springs which was extremely peaceful and relaxing. Bek wanted to go for a swim though Cass talked her out of putting her bikini on before we saw the spring as Albanians aren’t known for their care of the environment. When we got to the springs dge Bek put her foot in the 10oc water and said “I have swum in the English sea in winter but there is no way I am going in there!”
Later that day we arrived in Ksamil which we thought was going to be a nice seaside resort and where we planned to check into a hotel by the beach (thank god we didn’t book it in advance). Ksamil turned out to be a big dump of a town, numerous buildings had collapsed and many that hadn’t looked like the leaning Tower Of Pisa although people were still living inside. We thought there must have been an earthquake in the town but we used the internet and found out that the government tore down 200 buildings which were illegally erected and then expected the owners to clean the mess away, needless to say that the ruins will still be there in 200 years! We checked into a hotel anyway as we weren’t near to another town and the next day (the plan of laying by the beach for a few days was soon dismissed) we were heading south to a national park where there was no accommodation. At night we went for dinner and had mussels as we had driven past some mussel farms during the day .The food was lovely but we were both unwell afterwards, Bek says it’s put her off mussels for life.
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