I am pleased to announce that I have recently visited my 29th Country, making my first mission of visiting 30 countries before I turn 30 within arms reach! I have recently returned from a trip to Corfu, Greece where we discovered that Sarandë, Albania is a 30minute ferry ride away from the main town of Corfu, so visiting Sarandë was of course a no-brainer! We left our hotel early morning and made our way to the corfu ferry port where it wasn't long until we were en route to country number 29!!
I had researched ferry times and durations where I discovered that the 'flying dolphin' ferry is the quickest route to Sarandë and although tickets can be bought on the day of departure from the ticket stalls within Corfu town, I would highly recommend buying tickets online in advance, to reduce any worries and ensure for a smooth process on the day. The walk from Corfu town to the ferry port was very easy. Once we arrived at the ferry port, we headed straight to the departure area where there was a passport check, before we were directed to the waiting area for boarding. The ferry left on time and the boarding process was simple and well organised. The ferry is large, therefore it can fit a large amount of people on it so seating shouldn't be a problem. We opted for the 11:30am ferry which reached Sarandë at 11am local time. If you decide to take this same trip, then make sure to remember that there is a one hour time difference between Corfu and Sarandë, so plan accordingly. We decided on the 11:30am ferry out and the 6:30pm return ferry which pulled into Corfu ferry port at 8pm local time. I personally found this a nice amount of time to explore Sarandë, although the main activity point of Sarandë is visiting some of their many beaches, so if you're not a massive beach lover, you may want to reduce your time in Sarandë. The ferry journey was smooth and when we arrived at the Albanian ferry port, there was a small queue for passport control which took around 20 minutes overall.
Once we were through passport control, we were ready to explore the beautiful city of Sarandë. I was ecstatic that we were in my 29th country so as we left the ferry port, we began looking for a bar to celebrate! The currency of Albania is Albanian Lek which is a closed currency. This means that it cannot be exchanged outside of Albania and we decided to get some money out of an ATM machine. Throughout our day in Sarandë, we visited multiple bars, cafes and restaurants and it was apparent that cash is the preferred payment method in Sarandë, although most places did accept card and the majority of restaurants and shops also accepted euros. Our first stop in Sarandë was an ice cream stop where we enjoyed some delicious flavours and took in the beautiful sights of the stunning beaches. We quickly noticed a cafe above us, where we decided to begin our adventure. We began the day with some coffees, which were very nice and we had a beautiful rooftop view of Sarandë's beaches and mountains. After cheering to my 29th country, we began exploring Sarandë, which I found to be a very unique city with little similarities to other European cities. We explored various winding roads before deciding to make our way down to one of the many beaches.
The beaches were well kept and the sea was particularly warm and inviting. There was also a ledge for jumping into the sea, which Chris made full use of! We spent a good few hours enjoying ourselves on the beach and playing in the sea, which was very clear and the 30 degree weather helped to encourage us to swim. The beach had a friendly and fun atmosphere with large groups of people meeting up to enjoy themselves and jump into the inviting sea. We managed to get some great beach footage and thoroughly enjoyed spending time together in the Ioanian sea.
After an afternoon of swimming and playing on the beach, we had worked up an appetite so decided to visit a local restaurant where we enjoyed some traditional Albanian food and drinks. The service was good and the food was very enjoyable, which helped add to an already special day.
Once we had eaten, we had around an hour until our ferry departed so we decided to stop off at a bar that we came across on the way to the port. The bar was a rooftop bar that sold a large mixture of cocktails which would be almost impossible to try them all but I can assure you we gave it a good try! This was the perfect way to finish a relaxing and exciting day visiting my 29th country. the rooftop bar overlooked the sea and the staff members were very friendly and welcoming. We could have easily stayed for longer but knew that we had a ferry to catch so we begrudgingly left the amazing cocktail bar and headed for the port.
For every country that we travel to, we try to buy a piece of memorabilia from that country so we were particularly excited to find a gift shop under the cocktail bar. After spending some time searching for the perfect memorabilia, we decided on a unique wooden fish to symbolise our time swimming with the fishes in the Ioanian sea. We then took some final pictures to commemorate our time in the stunning city of Sarandë before making our way to the ferry port's passport control. This was a particularly quick process and this time, there were no queues so we went straight through to the boarding area. The ferry back to Corfu was just as quick and smooth as the journey to Sarandë and when we arrived in Corfu ferry port, it took a mere few minutes for us to pass through passport control. Visiting Sarandë was a very fun and adventurous day but it was also very tiring and we were both pleased to board a bus from Corfu town to our hotel and be on the last leg of our journey.
Overall, Sarandë is a beautiful city with a lot to be explored. We were initially planning on taking public transport to Ksamil from Sarandë, which is home to some stunning beaches. However, when we arrived in Sarandë, we noticed that the traffic was particularly bad and the journey time to Ksamil, which was already quite long, had now doubled so we decided to make the most out of Sarandë instead. Although, I'm pleased that we were able to explore Sarandë and I look forward to hopefully returning to Albania to discover some more beautiful locations.
So for now I will leave you on this note... One more country to go!!
