Gjirokastër

 I'm a bit behind, the joys of relaxing!! After another day in the beach we thought it would be a good idea to do an excursion a) to get out of the sun and b) to stop being so lazy.  So Gjirokastër was on the cards.  

Gjirokastër is known as the stone city, and from the pics it looks lovely.  Originally we were going to stay there for two nights before we decided to make sarandë our base. 

So we researched the bus times, got ourselves ready and headed for the bus.  We asked around, it's very difficult to understand transport here because there are public buses and there are public buses run by agencies.  So my information told me we could catch a public bus.   But of course this information was wrong, it was a public bus run by an agency and wasn't for another hour. 

But I didn't believe the agency guy I just thought he wanted our money, so we waited and waited for a bus that never came and then were worried that we wouldn't then get a seat on the public agency run bus, so basically they have you by the short and curlies!!! 

So pride dented tickets bought we boarded the bus.  Again it was another stunning bus ride.  This has been a great way to see some of the most incredible scenery.  First stop was the blue eye and another 45 mins was us. 

We arrived at the bus station hoping to find a information point of something but nothing, we also have no internet connection outside of free WiFi zones.  So it was back to the good old way of using your tongue and asking.  Guy from the bus just pointed in a general direction and said but it's about 20 mins best to take a taxi.  We all know my feelings on taxis so off we went. 

We saw what we thought looked like two other tourists waking so we followed, asked another guy in a shop and eventually after waking I guess around 20 mins all up hill (which was failed to be mentioned) we arrived at this completely different small town on top of a hill underneath a castle.

All the houses were the same the streets became cobbled and there were lots of people, so definitely in the right place.  Our options to return were 13.45 o 17h , we arrived at 11.45.  We decided 2hrs was plenty so wandered around.  The houses were mainly restaurants or souvenir shops .  The main attraction was the castle.  We found a cool tunnel that went under the castle but we as per usual didn't enter .

The streets were very pretty with lots of different coloured flowers and the style of the houses.  There was also a small mosque that you could enter.  Compared to others I've seen on this trip this was pretty but there was no grandeur involved.

It was very easy to see everything and enjoy the atmosphere in the time we had so we headed back down in enough time to catch the bus.  We thought about stopping at the blue eye but the bus ticket was the same price to the blue eye or to sarandë so we choose sarandë.

And for tea treated ourselves to 2 and a half kilos of fresh mussels from our friendly fish shop.  We really were trying to eat the whole menu!!!