The unexplored waters of Albania are filled with artifacts

The undersea treasures of Albania were the focus of an article of the famous British media on line www.thetimes.co.uk

The journalists were here on a mission to explore the underwater treasures in order and to raise awareness to save one of Europe’s last secret underwater treasure troves before it is plundered.
The underwater world here combines Albania’s recent isolationist past with its ancient history..

“It’s incredible what’s down there,” said Mateusz Polakowski, 29, an underwater archaeologist at Southampton University. “We don’t even know about a tiny fraction of it.” He is part of a team of archaeologists and technicians working feverishly to map out Albania’s underwater riches unexplored for decades because the country was ruled for four decades by the  dictator Enver Hoxha.

Enver Hoxha, whose communist forces seized power in 1945, ran Albania as a hermit kingdom, the most repressive and ideologically driven regime in Europe. It was the North Korea of its day. Its coastline is less than two miles from the beaches of Corfu, but it might as well have been on the moon.

Thanks to the diving ban, however, the waters off its coast are an archaeological time capsule, unrivaled across the Adriatic and the Mediterranean.

Underwater heritage experts hope Albania will avoid the fate of Greece and Italy, whose historical richness have been pillaged by treasure-hunting divers. Further north in the Adriatic, in the seas off the former Yugoslavia, armies of looters have used scuba apparatus to plunder artefacts from beneath the waves.

In the Bay of Vlore, on Albania’s southern coast, where the Hercules was last week searching for shipwrecks, the waters ran red when Caesar clashed with Pompey’s forces during the Great Roman Civil War of the 1st century BC.

When the Ottoman Empire was threatening Italy during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, its fleet gathered in the bay. Jews expelled from Spain during the late Middle Ages escaped to Vlore via Italy. All have left their imprints on the sea bed.

“We’re trying to find this little guy,” said Polakowski. Leaning back in his chair, he pointed at a map of the sea floor, marked with a green line showing the location of a wreck from about the 1st century BC. “We can identify the age by the type of amphora it carries. This one would have been carrying things like olive oil or wine.”

This search of Albania’s waters has been going on unheralded for the past decade.

A day’s sail away from this shipwreck lies Butrint, which, according to the Roman poet Virgil, was founded by refugees from ancient Troy, who escaped the sacking of their city more than 3,000 years ago.

In the modern era, the Albanian coast was an important supply line during both world wars.

“It’s like looking under the ocean with a flashlight,” said Polakowski. “It’s so vast. We’ve still only surveyed less than 1% of the area. You can swim a site 10 times and you can still be 10 metres off a shipwreck and miss it.”

Scuba diving is technically still not permitted, but three years ago the Albanian Council of Ministers allowed recreational diving in defined areas along the coast.

Now treasure-hunters from Italy and Austria have been seen in Albanian waters, as well as enterprising locals equipped with scuba equipment and a desire to make fast cash.

Telegraph: Albania- Europe's next big beach holiday destination?!

“Albania is like a missing piece in an otherwise completed jigsaw - the final portion of the landmass along the Adriatic which has not become a beach-holiday stalwart”. This is how Telegraph, the UK multimedia news brand describes our country, Albania. This media promoted Albania as a travel destination in several articles and this one is written by the author Chris Leadbeater, who sees Albania as a unique destination different from neighbor countries such as Greece, Montenegro and Croatia.

Ksamil Beach, Credit © 2011 Azem Ramadani 

“But if you take another glance at the map, one remaining pocket of the relatively unknown may just stare back at you. Albania is like a missing piece in an otherwise completed jigsaw - the final portion of the landmass along the Adriatic which has not become a beach-holiday stalwart” writes Telegraph.

Albania, by contrast, is still almost unheard of as a package destination - despite the fact that its 265 miles of seaside are in a prime location. In a rare event, the country can claim to be lapped by not just one sea, but two - the Adriatic and the Ionian are deemed to meet in the sheltered Vlorë Bay (where Vlorë, the country's third largest city sits). That, at this point, the distance between Albania and elbow of Puglia, away to the west in Italy, is just 60 miles, only emphasizes the splendor of this Balkan country's location.

There should be a caveat here, of course. To say that Albania is almost unheard of as a package destination is to overlook the many Albanian tourists who are well aware of their home state's suitability for a week on the sand. There are plenty of rooms, and plenty of paying customers, in the hotel zones of Durrës (the second city, in the north of the country) and Saranda (the key tourism hotspot, in the south, close to the Greek border). It is just that, as yet, there are very few Britons among them. The cat remains in the bag.

Photo source: Telegraph

Albania is already an intriguing country to visit - Tirana is an increasingly cosmopolitan city, while the country's wealth of ancient archaeological sites (including the likes of Apollonia and Butrint) might almost rival Italy. But in a time when question marks linger over traditional beach destinations such as Egypt and Turkey, it could be that, in the next three or four years, its main appeal will be as a place in the sun. Mystery solved.

See full article here!

German Travel Magazine: Albania -Between sea and mountain

DAV (Deutscher Alpenverein) is the largest Mountain Sports Association in the world and one of Germany's major sports and nature conservation associations. DAV recently published an article about Albania, specifically about Southern Albania written by journalist Joachim Chwasczca.

Mediterranean landscapes of the southern Albania can be enjoyed by walking or biking on the roads with spectacular views from the sea. Llogara Pass is one of the most beautiful roads in Albania, is a high mountain pass with the highest point of 1, 027 m within the Ceraunian Mountains along the Albanian Riviera.  The platform allows you to have the best view of all the area. It seems like you are seeing this view from an airplane. 

Der Llogarapass an der Südküste Albaniens schraubt sich bis auf 1027 Meter empor und ist bei klarer Sicht eine fantastische Aussichtskanzel. Der Pass ist Grenze und Wasserscheide zwischen dem Adriatischen und dem Ionischen Meer. Steht man oben an einer der Aussichtskanzeln, fällt der Blick wie aus einem Flugzeug nach unten und folgt dem tausend Meter tiefer liegenden Küstenbogen bis zur Hafenstadt Saranda, dem antiken Hafen Onchesmos. Die Insel Korfu zeichnet sich ab, Griechenland ist zum Greifen nahe. 

See original article  here!