Blogs from South, Albania, Europe - page 6

This is an amazing opportunity I have to cave dive in albania. There is an interconnected cave system about 45 minutes outside of saranda with 9 different springs (that have been recorded). Very very few divers venture into these caves due to the dangers and risks associated with them. I was fortunate enough to dive with archeologist Peter Campbell and ecologist Derek smith, into this insanely high flow cave. My first time attempting to enter the cave was unsuccessful. The force of the flow literally blew my body and gear (with extra weights) out of the cave opening. I regrouped at the surface and tried again, this time reading the cave a little better. I made it through the opening and down to the ledge at 65ft where Peter and Derek were doing their survey. It ... read more

Two amazing days in the city of Saranda with our first couple of dives for the field school. Led by Derek Smith, one of the program coordinators and ecologists with the Marine Center, he led the students on a dive just off the coast. Max depth was approximately 75 feet and we had not only great visitbility but interesting sea life. Lots of sea grass and mussels. The mission of the dive was to find artifacts (or something that looked like it was one) and mark it with a lift bag and reel. After the dive, we mark the bag with GPS, record it, cut the line, then go to the next bag. It was an interesting learning process about how to collect data for submerged collection items. Our boat Captain, Howard and I chatted for ... read more

Now here’s five words I never expected to say – “We went to Albania today!” That’s right Enver Hoxha’s former ”stomping” grounds. A bus picked us up, brought us over the mountain to Corfu Town where we boarded and Ionian Ferry Line ship. An hour and a bit later we were on Albanian soil in the growing city of Saranda. We took a tour bus to the ancient ruins of Butrinti – by 400BC it was an established Greek settlement, and a couple hundred years later became refortified by the Romans – later Augustus would reframe it as a veterans colony – fast forward to the 900s and it was remodelled as part of the Byzantine empire. Lightly settled again by the Ottomans in 1600, then it was ceded to Napoleon by Venice and in 1799 ... read more

Sheep, cows and a ship where they don't belong In the previous blog we made on Albania we wrote about our visit to Berati. We there wrote that "Berati has a picturesque old town and on a hill towering over the town there is a fortress." The first city we are going to write about here in this blog entry, Gjirokaster, can be described with exactly the same words: Gjirokaster has a picturesque old town and on a hill towering over the town there is a fortress. Or at least that is how we are supposed to describe the city. But the thing is we liked Berati a lot and in comparison Gjirokaster gave us a pretty bleak impression. The old town was less picturesque and the fortress was good but not better than many other ... read more

Balam sie troche wjazdu do Albanii. Na szczescie mielismy wszystkie odpowiednie kwity dotyczace samochodu, lacznie z notarialnie poswiadczonym w Polsce upowaznieniem do jego prowadzenia. Wtedy jeszcze nie wiedzialam, dlaczego greccy celnicy tak nas dokladnie ogladaja, ale szybko wyjasnilo sie, ze dziwnym trafem zageszczenie dobrych samochodow w Albanii nie do konca odpowiada zamoznosci jego mieszkancow. Z granicy skierowalismy sie prosto do Gjirokaster - miasta, gdzie urodzil sie w 1908 roku przyszly albanski przywodca Enver Hohxa, co spowodowalo, ze mialo ono nastepnie status miasta-muzeum, dzis na liscie UNESCO i w duzej mierze uniknelo komunistycznego zniszczenia. Tam tez planowalismy szukac jakiegos transportu dla naszej towarzyszki, ktora musiala ewakuowac sie z Albanii za 2 dni. Stare Gjiorokaster lezy na wzgorzu i sklada sie z ottomanskich domow, waskich stromych uliczek,... read more