Along the Highway

The town square at Libohova.  This is the largest plane tree in the Balkans, and is about 500 years old, they say.  I didn't know deciduous trees lived that long, but I'm no botanist.  It was big, though.  

On the way to Saranda we took a little detour to see the Blue Eye (Syri i kaltër, in Albanian).  It is a deep and very large spring with quite a fast flow rate, although the flow rate varies.  The picture is looking straight down at it.  It looks like a blue eye to those who are not imagination-challenged.  The third picture is the river which flows from the spring.  It was nice and shady and cool under the trees.  

The last picture is of the beach at Ksamil very close to Butrint.  The amount of construction is really mind boggling.  There is no planning, so whoever wants to build whatever builds it, whether or not there is any infrastructure to support it.   Bank financing is available, but it seems to constitute a small portion of construction.  The majority of construction is self-financed, and construction stops when the money runs out.  Some of the houses in this picture will probably look the same this time next year, while others will be in varying stages of completion.  Some may even be finished.