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Published: July 12th 2006
Hi All,
Its a hard life lazing on a Greek Island for a week! Corfu is an island in the Ionian Sea which has the most amazing blue/torquoise and cystal clear waters. Cathy, Brian (Vic's parents), Vic and I rented out a villa on the peaceful North East coast of the island with panoramic views over the water and over to Albania which is just 1.5 miles across the water!
The first few days mainly comprised of lazing by the pool, swimming at our local private pebble beach and sampling some delicous local food and wine at our local taverna. Day four included a day trip to Albania and what an experience! This country was under Communist rule for 50 years until 1990 and is still in a period of transition. Here we were greeted by our driver and guide in a 4x4 and taken to an ancient Roman city called Butrint dating back to 1000BC where archaeologists were working and still discovering ruins. From here we went to a converted castle for lunch with amazing views and then to the Blue Eye where 19 natural springs emerge from underground dispersing cyrstal clear water.
Throughout the day we
clearly noticed the sad state of affairs in Albania. Arriving at the port city of Sarande, we quickly noticed the run down state of the city as every second building was incomplete due to a government supported pyramid scheme going wrong and the lack of economic growth that was hoped for after the end of Communist ruling. The roads in the city are just dirt, rubble everywhere, holes in the middle of the roads, we saw a cow walking in the city, kids peeing in the streets and we were always coming across one of the 750,000 built bunkers in fear of the country being bombed!
Our last few days were spent exploring Corfu Town to do some shopping, more lazing by the pool and beach and spending a day on a boat exploring the north east coast of the island where we again lazed by the beach all day, ate fresh fish on the beach, sampled local produce while wishing we could stay longer!!
We are now back in Knutsford, but flying over the Ireland tomorrow for 5 days.
Bye for now,
Wes, Vic, Brian and Cathy.
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Part of Corfu island
Nikos
non-member comment
about Butrint
Thank you for your story , seems you had a good time in Corfu! :) I write this reply just to clarify some things about Butrint. You mention only roman while this city was founded centuries before the roman period , and actually the original greek name was Bouthroton (Bouthrotum in Latin). The place flourished during ancient and hellenistic period ( By the 4th century BC it had grown in importance and included a theatre, a sanctuary to Asclepius and an agora - archaeological excavation uncovered these in 1943). Still many inscriptions there found are almost exclusively writen in Greek. For further reading i propose the article following (Archaeological Institute of America) http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/butrint/index.html Closing this short intervention , i have to say i am surprised all the time that how some countries of eastern europe try to hide their hellenic past while other of western europe (like italy) not only they dont hide it but they are proud for it.