Butrint Ruins, Ksmail Beach and a Relax Day
Off to Ksmail Beach
June 29: Louise is feeling much better today. After a relaxed morning, John has a definitely unrelaxed fifteen minutes getting the car out of the parking garage.
It is a thirty minute drive to Ksmail Beach. We take a few wrong turns because often streets are so narrow, they look like driveways. Eventually we get to the beach. We drop off Louise and Lance at the Ohana Beach Club and John and I head to the nearby Butrint National Archeological Park.
Butrint National Archeological Park
This UNESCO World Heritage Site dates back over 2,500 years. Quite mind boggling when you think of it. In the late 5th Century the Byzantines did a lot of building here. The area switched hands many times between the Venetians and the Ottoman empires.
Butrint ‘s name came from a word that means wounded bull. There is a legend that a bull offering in Crete got botched and the bull escaped to Albania. The Greeks built a settlement there because the people considered the bulls escape lucky (I’m certain that the bull did as well).
In 228 BC Butrint became a Roman protectorate and in 44 BC Julius Caesar made it a Roman colony. Later an earthquake destroyed the town and it was abandoned. Later the French, Venetians and Ottomans had it for awhile. Eventually it became part of Independent Albania in 1913.
There are so many wonderful ruins to see on the site and despite the heat, I am comfortable because we are walking through breezy forested paths to get from one ruin to the next. The cicadas are very vocal.
Some of my highlight ruins here are the Roman Sanctuary of Asclepius (son of Apollo, God of Medicine). Click here for a short video. Highlights also are the Roman Forum, Baths, Gymnasium, Palace and more.
My favourite is the Byzantine Bapitistry with it’s wonderful mosaics. We are lucky to see the mosaics because they are often protected. The Great Basilica is also fabulous. I am barely scratching the surface. There is so much to see.
There is a small museum in the Venetian Acropolis castle on the site.
Ohana Beach Club
It is a ten minute drive back to the beach club where we meet up with Louise and Lance, have lunch at the restaurant and relax beside the Mediterranean.
Evening in Sarande
We are back at the apartment after 6pm. We have drinks and nibbles on our balcony before heading out for John’s belated birthday dinner (we were all too jet lagged on his real birthday).
Right on the shore there is a FIFA fan area set up and people are watching the Brazil – Japan game. We head to a waterfront 
seafood restaurant for dinner. The guys are watching the game on the restaurant TV. We can tell when Brazil scores because the fan base area let’s out a roar as their screen is 30 seconds ahead of the restaurant screen.
There is a full moon tonight.
Relax Day in Sarande
June 30: Today the weather forecast says that it is supposed to rain in the afternoon. We get up early with the plan of having a chill day since it is still hot as hell with this heat wave.
John researched coffee places with a view so we walk to a different area and have cappuccinos overlooking the sunny Mediterranean at Cafe Italia.
Afterwards we do some meandering. Louise & I think about earning some extra money to help pay for our trip. The guys are very supportive.
We come across a glitter car for sale, but it’s not our colour.
We head back to the apartment for a lunch of salad and a traditional meat or veggie pastry/pie and a big bowl of fresh cherries. The rain shows up around 2:30pm bringing a nice cool breeze that we enjoy while sitting on our balcony.
