Blue Eye, Gjirokaster and Lekursi Castle Day Tour from Saranda

Lekursi Castle above Saranda

The day begins with a short climb out of town to Lekursi Castle, a square 16th-century fortress built in the Ottoman period on the hill directly above Saranda. Its thick walls and corner towers were positioned to watch the sea lane between the mainland and Corfu, and that is exactly the view you get today: the whole horseshoe of Saranda bay below, the Ksamil peninsula and Lake Butrint to the south, and the mountains of Corfu across the strait.

In the clear morning air the colours are at their sharpest, which is why we take you up before the drive inland. About 20 minutes is enough to walk the walls, take photos and get your bearings for the rest of the day. Lekursi Castle from Saranda is only a few minutes by car, but the viewpoint explains the geography of the whole region better than any map.

The Blue Eye spring

The Blue Eye, Syri i Kaltër in Albanian, is a karst spring about 25 kilometres inland from Saranda where water surges up from an underground system so deep that divers have never reached the bottom. The pool is a vivid dark blue at the centre, ringed by paler turquoise, so that from the wooden platform above it looks exactly like an iris and pupil. The water stays cold all year and feeds the Bistrica river, which runs away through plane trees and oaks.

From the car park a shaded path of about 15 to 20 minutes leads to the spring, and the entry fee is paid on arrival. You have time to walk around the pool, follow the river a little way and sit at the cafe by the water. Is the Blue Eye worth visiting? For most travellers in southern Albania it is the single most memorable natural sight, and the mid-morning light on this tour shows the colours at their best.

Mesopotam Monastery and the Ottoman bridge

A few minutes from the Blue Eye, in the village of Mesopotam, stands the Monastery of St Nicholas, one of the most unusual Byzantine churches in Albania. Built in the 13th century on the site of an earlier temple, it has two apses side by side instead of one, and its outer walls are decorated with carved stone reliefs of lions, dragons and mythical beasts set into the brickwork. The interior is simple and cool, and the setting among cypresses and farmland is quiet.

Nearby our driver-guide stops at a single-arched Ottoman stone bridge, built for mule caravans and still standing over its stream, for photos and a short explanation of how these bridges linked the villages of the Drino and Bistrica valleys. Together the monastery and the bridge add the medieval and Ottoman layers to a day that otherwise moves between nature and the stone city of Gjirokaster.

Communist-era bunkers

Scattered across Albania are hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers, built from the 1960s to the 1980s when the country's isolated regime expected invasion from every direction. Most are small mushroom-shaped domes for one or two soldiers; others are larger command posts. On the road between the Blue Eye and Gjirokaster the tour stops at a group of them, standing in fields and by the roadside exactly where they were poured.

You can step inside, look out through the firing slit and hear from your driver-guide what daily life was like under the regime and why the bunkers were never used. It is a short stop, but it answers a question almost every visitor asks about these strange grey domes they keep seeing from the car window, and it puts the modern history of Albania into the day alongside its castles and churches.

Gjirokaster: the city of stone

Gjirokaster climbs the slope of the Drino valley in tiers of tall Ottoman tower houses with slate-covered roofs, which is why Albanians call it the City of Stone. The old town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005 for the completeness of its 17th- and 18th-century houses, its cobbled bazaar of carved wooden shopfronts and the huge castle on the ridge above, one of the largest fortresses in the Balkans, with a clock tower and views along the valley.

Our driver-guide walks you through the bazaar and the old town, explaining the fortified houses, then leaves you free time for lunch at one of the traditional restaurants, where the local specialities are baked dishes of rice, vegetables and meat. Entry to Gjirokaster Castle is optional and paid locally if you want to use your free time on the ramparts. A Gjirokaster day trip from Saranda is the classic way to see it, and we take care of the driving and the route.