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| The Great Basilica at Butrint |
It was a gorgeous day this morning, but it took me a while to wake up. I couldn't even choke down much of the great breakfast spread, but I did have some cereal, fruit, and a croissant. The special of the morning was fresh cake donuts.
We were docked at Sarande Albania, so getting off on to the buses was easy. We were away at 8:30 and off to Butrint - a UNESCO site that shows the different architectures of many centuries with many inhabitants. On the way, we did see another bunker, Lake Butrint with its many mussel farms. Albania still looks like a 3rd world country with its many unfinished buildings, narrow roads, but it is interspersed with some beautiful hotels, lovely beaches, many shops. A very changing country. Loretta was our local guide.
We reached Butrint at 9 and started our walk. The whisper system that we all carry is really nice because it does reach a long way as I tend to wander away from the crowd. We saw the Venetian Tower, theater, bath houses, the triconch palace, baptistery, Great Basilica. There was a hike to the Lion Gate and museum, but it was all uphill, and I bailed and wandered back to the entrance.
It is a nicely wooded area (lovely eucalyptus trees), and I got just enough of the "pile of old rocks" tour. I left the site and wandered towards the buses. There were lots of little kids selling mostly 'evil eye' bracelets, but it was fun to try and chat with them. I stopped and chatted with an Albanian tour van driver who had just let his passengers off with their guide. He was a delightful interlude before the group came back.
As we were leaving, many tour buses arrived, so our timing was great. Plus it was starting to get warm. We drove back to Sarande and on up to Lekursi Castle located on a high hill over Sarande. We saw more bunkers, and I think I started a real thing with them. Since everyone wanted to spot them. I also had brought the bags of cookies I had purchased at Nonica bakery in Hvar. I passed them out to our bus and finally got rid of them!
Lekursi Castle is now just a large open-air restaurant with the most amazing view of Sarande down below, Lake Butrint, fields behind us, and Corfu across the channel. As we arrived, an older gentleman in a local, old-time costume was playing a flute to welcome us. A buffet of "snacks" was presented to us along with wine and Albanian beer. I got a beer, some great sausage balls, some chicken sausage, some cheese/grape skewers, and some local dry bread that I wasn't too thrilled with.
I took my snacks and beer to the farthest table overlooking the totally amazing view and sat there for a half hour, just enjoying the view. Most of the group were inside the restaurant listening to flute-man play while they ate their snacks. I could not comprehend sitting inside with the wonderful view that I had to myself. Absolutely stunning!!!
At 1 we started the process of leaving, and I saw my guy that treated me to a coffee yesterday, and we exchanged my first European double cheek air kiss. He is such a sweetie, and Tom our expedition leader came over and said that Agin is the head of the tour group Lindblad uses in Albania. What a lovely morning.
We came back to the ship, and as soon as we were all on board, we started to leave. As we got into the channel, we had a buffet lunch of St Pierre salad (cold fish) with truffles, gratinated semolina (cake-like) with salsa, local ham station carved by Simon our hotel manager (this was the ham Tom had purchased in Nijushi above Korcula), roasted potato salad with sour cream, barley salad with bell peppers, red radish salad with champignons, garden greens, tomato soup with pine nuts, fresh grilled sea bream, mixed fresh veggies (quite good), osso bucco, carrots, gnocchi, Kefir creme brûlée and pistachio salad. I had tiny bits of as many items as I could.
During lunch we had motored out to the channel and the crew went to work setting the sails. We had about 5 minutes of wind and then we were becalmed! We had gone nowhere. Most of the afternoon they tried various sail settings to no avail. At 5 they finally took the sails down, and we motored on down the coast towards Ithaca.
At 4 tea was served in the lounge with coffee, tea, cookies, apple cake, dried tomato bruschetta, ham wraps, and salmon sandwiches. We could easily eat ourselves to death on this cruise!
At 6:30 Tom gave a lecture on the history of the Sea Cloud on the Lido Deck. I stayed down below and listened periodically. At 7:30 an open house was held to show off the original suites of Marjorie Post and her guests. They are huge and very fancy, but no one spends that much time in their rooms, so I don't see the point.
Then at 8 we sat down for a late dinner. The food was awesome as usual. The appetizer was 3 treatments of yellow fin tuna: baked in a puff pastry, another square rolled in sesame seeds, and the 3rd square was rolled in crushed nori. The entree was venison with a cranberry crust on top, creamy polenta, and Swiss chard. For dessert we had a chocolate cake in a tiny ramekin with a small cookie served with basil ice cream and a pineapple ragout.
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