Day 147: Blue Eye, Gjirokastër, and Butrint

Aug 28 - Today up for 9:00 ride to some nearby sites of interest. It is hot and cloudless. Driving through the valley to the east and up into the mountains, I think about whether it would have been a good idea to rent a car instead. There are an adequate number of road signs, and the road surfaces are not perfect but decent enough. The problem would have been access. All three of the places we go today have very limited parking. I’ve found that in Albania, there is normally not nearly enough space for vehicles, and it is expected that drivers will just figure out a place to go along the road or in a field. In addition, as one approaches sites of interest, there is sometimes a checkpoint barring random people from going any closer. This would add considerable walking time, along a road, to get access. In our case, the driver seems to be known to all the guards, as he blazes right through and drops us off at the end of the road or street.

Today’s route: (A) Sarandë, (B) The Blue Eye, (C) Gjirokastër, (D) Butrint.

We first stop at the Blue Eye (Syri i Kaltër), about 30 minutes west of Sarandë. This is a small national park, featuring a beautiful and prolific spring. It is about a 30 minute walk from the entrance gate to the spring. Along the way we pass by a lake, formed from several springs, now dammed. This park has a lot of wildlife, but the larger mammals (wolves, fox, and deer) I’m sure are all hidden deep in the forest.

View north from the dam.

The mountains around Syri i Kaltër. Much of the mountainous terrain in this part of Albania has scattered trees, with more dense tree cover only on the north sides.

The vegetation gets very lush in the boggy area around the springs.

The underground source is under the dark blue portion in the background.

The water flow, according to Wikipedia, is 18,400 liters/second.

There were signs prohibiting swimming, but people were in there anyway.

The river does not go far before it drains into the previously mentioned lake.

From here we go up over the Gjerë mountain range and down into a wide valley, which we saw other parts of on our bus trip yesterday. It is a relief to get out of the mountains as the road has a lot of curves and the guy driving us is in a hurry.

The next destination is the city of Gjirokastër. This city, like Berat, is hugely important as an Albanian architectural and cultural landmark. The hilltop where the castle sits was originally the site of a Greek city (Antigonea) that allied itself with the Macedonian Empire to fight the Romans. But they failed and the city was completely destroyed by Rome in 168 BCE.

In its current form, it was first noted from records in 1336 by its Greek name, Argyrókastro. The city, like all of this southern tip of Albania, had a strong Greek affiliation due to its ethnic Greek population. Historically, it was contested between the ethnic Albanian tribes to the north, and the self-proclaimed Despotate of Epirus (a Greek breakaway state of the Byzantine Empire). This argument ceased when the region fell under the Ottomans in 1417, until 1913, during which the Ottoman influence and Muslim population grew. Upon being liberated of the Ottomans, Albania laid claim to the city and region, but the significant Greek population rebelled and proclaimed the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus, with Gjirokastër as its capital. This autonomy was lost by 1921, when the region was finally awarded again to Albania.

Here again, as in Blagaj (BiH), we see many slate tile rooves on the older buildings. I learned today that they are just laid on a wooden roof frame without any adhesion. As such, during heavy rains it is often necessary to go in the attic and rearrange the tiles if the storm causes them to shift.

The Greek influence is clear in this region. There is even a consulate general of Greece just downhill from the castle.

Gjirokastër Castle from below.

Parts of Gjirokastër Castle have been reconstructed and there is plenty of armament still within its walls, as well as three different museums.

The military museum.

Part of the castle was a notorious prison during the ‘dark times’ (Communist rule). This is where many Albanian intellectuals languished for years, since being educated was a threat to the Hoxha regime.

There are competing narratives as to why this American Air Force T-33 Shooting Star ended up in Albania in 1957. The US claims the pilot got lost and ran out of fuel, landing in Tirana airport and abandoning the plane. The Albanian government of the time claimed they intercepted it and forced it to land, since it was ‘spying’.

The clocktower was added by Ali Pasha in the 19th Century. Ali Pasha was quite the colorful character. He started out as an Ottoman governor but grew to see himself as a ruler of his own domain. In challenging the Sultan, he became a target for elimination: the region was invaded by the Sultan’s armies and he was captured/executed.

Odette does her gymnastics exercises on the festival state. The castle becomes a venue for a nationwide music festival once every five years.

The old town is all tourist stalls now.

Would be fun to buy one, if we could carry it.

One touchy subject, that I wasn’t sure would receive much space in the history museum, is Enver Hoxha. As mentioned previously, he was the Communist leader of Albania from 1946-85, and chief architect of one of the most repressive political regimes of modern times. He was also born in Gjirokastër. There was a small section to discuss him, but really there wasn’t much to say, as apparently since becoming leader of the country, he visited only a few times in those 40 years. And in each of those times, as with probably most of what he did, everything was staged for maximum propaganda effect. The one photo they showed was of him standing on the wall of the castle, waving to the adoring masses while his subordinates stand next to him, clapping. Identical to just about any photo we see today of Kim Jong-un.

From here we head back south, past Sarandë, all the way to the southern tip of a peninsula, past the beach town of Ksamil. Here is one of the most important archaeological sites in Albania, the ruins of Butrint. It sits right at the point where the Vivari Channel connects the Ionian Sea with Lake Butrint (a brackish water body). The channel itself is very narrow and a ferry, run by a cable, moves vehicles across.

Across the channel is a fort dating from Venetian times. Somewhere in the background hills is the Greek border.

The entrance fee for the archaeological park is 1000 lek/person (kids are always free), quite expensive comparatively for Albania.

One of the best preserved structures in the park is a Venetian-aged tower.

The most substantial structures constructed in Butrint are Roman. After the taking of Illyrium in 168 BCE, Romans occupied this area and when it was visited by Caesar in 44 BCE, was declared a colony and building/renovating went forward quickly. The work accelerated under Augustus.

There is a small temple to Asclepius in the above complex, and next to it are a few blocks with Greek inscriptions.

I looked this one up. It is from the mid 2nd Century BCE, so predates the Roman occupation. It records the act of freeing a slave, and states the name of the former owner, and all the witnesses to the act of liberation.

The amphitheater, which was probably one of the structures renovated and expanded from the Greek version.

The baths, and more specifically, the caldarium. the area beneath the floor was open as noted in the corner above and heat was generated between the columns. It radiated up through the floor into the room, where it could either serve to heat the air, or pools of water.

The remaining nave of a medieval church, built over the old Roman gymnasium.

Note that in the above photo, there is water filling the area of the original church floor. Brackish water seeping into the structures became a real problem in medieval times, and by the time the Venetians were fortifying the complex, the problem became so pronounced that eventually the whole area was abandoned. In a sense this saved the archaeological value, because no further habitation occurred, and the structures were left to be overgrown with vegetation. So many times it happens that sites like this just end up buried under modern towns and cities, so its nice to see one left alone.

This was a bummer. The above round columnated room was a Christian baptistery, built on the site of a previous Roman bathhouse. Though the ground is covered in gravel in this photo, the real floor underneath is a beautiful tile mosaic. However, they leave it covered except for special occasions. Exposure to the elements would fade the colors.

The shell of a 9th Century basilica.

Inside the basilica is the only floor mosaic that is visible.

Nice stonework! This cannot be Byzantine or Venetian, its too well done. Turns out it is even older than Roman, being part of the original Hellenic fortification.

The Lion Gate, on the northeast corner of the fortress. Hard to see, but the relief is of a lion attacking the neck of a bull. This door was originally tall enough for adults to go through, but the stone with the relief was added to make it more difficult to enter and easier to defend.

In early Roman times, this channel across the south part of Lake Butrint had a long stone bridge, with an aqueduct. It fell into disuse in Byzantine times, and fell apart completely in the centuries since. Its remnants have been found by geophysical methods on the lake floor.

One last column to look at before we head back to the apartment.

Albania