This morning we said “Na shledanou” (goodbye) to Praha. We barely got a few hours sleep before we had to wake up and get to the airport for our 5AM flight to Corfu. We arranged for someone to pick us up and turns out he was quite the driver! We flew through the street of Prague and made it to the airport in record time. The trip is normally closer to an hour and we made it in about 25 minutes (the empty streets helped)! Unfortunately while we were at the airport plenty early, our flight was delayed about an hour. Once we boarded we found someone sitting in our seat and kindly let him know. Well, little did we know that the plane would be practically empty! It was a large plane with 3 seats on either side, a first class section, and probably close to 45 rows. Apparently this isn’t the most popular time of the year to fly from Prague to Corfu!
When we touched down we de-boarded the plane and proceeded to wait for our bags. This didn’t take terribly long despite about 4-5 planes all arriving about the same time. Once we collected our bags we made for the exit to find a taxi. We both noted that it was odd that we didn’t pass through some kind of customs at an international airport but figured we would have been herded like cattle to the appropriate place and didn’t think much of it. Our taxi driver was friendly and asked us to share with another gentleman since it seems like he was the last one there to provide a ride. It was a short trip to the center of Corfu where we found a nice place to eat some lunch. Little did we know when we ordered how ginormous the portions would be. The food was good but as you can imagine we were unable to finish (or hardly make a dent) in our lunches!
After lunch we put on our packs and made our way by foot to the ferry terminal. It was an easy walk, a bit hot but overall the weather was pretty moderate. We walked all the way through the port to find the international ferry terminal. Once we arrived we spotted a sign by pure luck indicating where we should check in. We had bought our tickets just that morning and oddly the confirmation email did not include any kind of attachment. It simply said tickets could not be obtained in advance and that we needed to see the check in. The very kind woman told us not to worry, just show the confirmation at the door and that checkin would start in 20 minutes. Mind you, we were there an hour in advance of the ferry departure time. She then proceeded to tell pretty much everyone else who came to checkin that it would be 20 minutes. Eventually, the time came for us to pass through passport control and wait to board the ferry. As we tried to go through the gentleman checking tickets looked very confused at what we showed him and asked us to wait. After everyone else was passed through the door he came back to us and again tried to take a look at the confirmation email we had. We told him that the woman at the counter told us it would be no problem and that we should just show him this same email. He finally gave up on trying to find her, asked us if “the short woman” told us it was ok to which we said yes, and then he let us through. We then showed our passports to the border control woman who also had a very confused look. She asked us from where we came and we told her Prague. To that she said “but you don’t have a passport stamp from entering Greece”. This certainly had us a bit worried then she asked to see our plane tickets. Thankfully I had them electronically and upon reviewing it and realizing we literally just arrived she also let us through. The ferry ride was a bit of a mess and certainly not kept to a strict schedule. We departed about 45 minutes late but overall the ride was nice and only about 90 minutes.
When we arrived at the Albanian port in Sarande we passed through passport control again, thankfully with no issues. Before we even stepped foot off the escalator to depart the terminal we were bombarded by taxi drivers offering us rides for a “cheap price”. While the price seemed ok we were told by another passenger that it is a bit of a rip off and we should walk if we can or take the bus which would take us right by where our AirBnB is. We opted to walk and while it was hot and probably longer than we anticipated it was very nice. We even ran into the same taxi driver from the port who seemed to be stalking us just to give us a ride for 600 meters! It was fun to get to see a decent part of the town. You can tell that this is turning into the sleepy shoulder season however its been nice to be somewhere more quite. We are very much looking forward to staying in one place for a few days.
We met the AirBnB host and were showed to our apartment which is on the top floor of the building. The apartment itself is very nice, clean and spacious but it cannot compare to the balcony and view of the sea!! I think we both felt immediately relaxed upon seeing it. I imagine that while in the apartment we will spend much of our time outside. We can see the town of Sarande to our right and the island of Corfu just off to our left. There is an amazing sea breeze that passes through the entire apartment and keeps the temperature nice.
We found a market just across the street from the apartment with pretty much anything we could want. We even found 2 new flavors of Lays potato chips – Basil and Tzatziki. I didn’t care too much for the basil but the Tzatziki is ON POINT!! The cost of goods here is amazing! Truly an affordable place and you can tell that they are working towards building the tourism business and generally enriching the economy. After getting some provisions we took another walk to find a place to eat. As I mentioned, it is turning into shoulder season for a beach town so not as many places are open. We ended up stopping at a pizza place (big surprise!) which was fantastic!! We had a very nice meal to close out our extremely long day. A couple things we have noticed so far is that pretty much everyone speaks English. This is not your typical English as a second language where they might miss a world here or there, nope, they all speak pristine English! That has certainly been helpful for us. The other thing we have found is that everyone here is super friendly! They are all so kind and willing to help, offer advice, or give directions. We are glad that while this may have seemed like a random place to visit it is turning out to be one that we are deeply enjoying. We plan to get as much rest as possible, sleep in, and hit the beach! Until next time!
Devious Owl 