C - Day : The Adventure Begins

Our trip started today at 9 am when we arrived by ferry from Corfu in Sarande in Albania.

The Dragonfly in Sarande Harbour

Contrary to two years ago the transfer was super smooth - no waiting - the ferry left on time!

Once arrived we went to Butrint, the old Hellenistic town, which lost its importance when the harbour silted. As a consequence the Venetians built in 1204 their main naval station on the opposite island of Corfu. Butrint is in good shape but a little less impressive than what we saw in Lydia last year

Roman Amphitheater in Butrint

On the way back we crossed two of the 140’000 bunkers which the Communist leader Enver Hoxha let build during his reign. As the last Stalinist (he broke with Tito first, then with the Russians and in 1979 also with the Chinese) he was paranoid about an attack from all sides and thus build bunkers everywhere spending 2% of GDP on his follies!

Typical Albanian bunker from the cold war period

By lunch time we set sail to Porto Palermo the Venetian built fortress that was later taken over by the Ottomans and used as military base. We are going to visit in a few minutes

Palermo Fortezza

And we raised the flags! Only four nations on board in the first week