Key ingredients

Timing is the key ingredient to successful travel, especially when companies insist. e.g. car hire versions insisting thier property is returned by a specified hour, transport versions insisting you arrive a specified time before departure, companions insisting on visiting certain locales. It's all a juggle in the jungle (of possible outcomes). Knowing the distance, the road, the car, the times and desires in order to get to the port city of Saranda we were both up at the first sound of the sparrows this morning, packed up our lives into the four bags, lugged 'em back down the 40 steps, loaded the car and slipped away from the beach strip with no-one noticing, apart from the goat herder just around the first corner. He would've noticed non-blogger taking a picture of him and his flock and thus continued his contemplation about how much his home has been transformed recently. Goats were not bred for bitumen, sure they'll adapt to the surface, yet slowly and inevitably they'll be kicked out of thier generational home territory. Bumper bars tend to do that over time unfortunately.

The roads were starkly quiet as per yesterday and we made good time weaving in and out, over and around the never ending winding roads. The usual suspects were waiting for the local bus whist the rising sun and the views of the mountains and steep valleys were obscured somewhat by the smoke of forrest fires burning somewhere.
We left particularly early in order to head a bit further south to check out the town of Ksamil as apparently they have the best beaches in Albainia...with real sand. A slight navigation error lost us about 5 minutes and a bit of stress, however we did get there before their day had really started. Yes they do have sand beaches.

Perfectly groomed, adorned with yet more couches and umbrellas. There is no such thing as a quiet beach in this country anymore. All have been commercialized. Not sure how these facilities would be when every bench is adorned with folk. We loved Himare, mostly because we were enjoying extremely low occupancy rates. When they hit 100% it would interesting to see. Transpose the crowd from a busy city street and put it on a beach, it's still a crowd. Albeit with significantly less attire.
So we checked out the locale (not sure if it's worth returning). The plan was to have the morning coffee whilst there and that worked out well as we found a thumping, jivin` place open with only staff inside.

We were thier first customers and set vibe for the place for the rest of the day (not) by being aged, greying, red and wrinkled Aussies ordering big coffees (late`) and water. Suspect they had a good laugh when we left. I don't know, maybe so. Doesn't matter as it was a great coffee and we had a boat to catch. So still on time , headed back to the port for a whole lot of chaos to ensue. This is where the timing scenario really kicked in.
The roads were gridlocked, took a while to figure out why, suspect it was due to a traffic cop who simply was not paying any sort of attention to traffic flow. We got through without stress because we had time to spare due to the forementioned early departure. Got to the port and had no idea where to give the piece of junk up to. Eventually this blogger took the Albanian way and illegally parked, blocking the road and causing yet another traffic jam. This was also across from the police station, just to give it extra poignancy. All in order get out of it and to find out where this piece of crap was meant to be deposited. If that idiot in the Merc keeps yelling and beeping his horn there is every likelihood that it will end up being deposited within him.
One week in a country and you're almost a local.
Finally got it all sorted thanks to the friendly guard at the port (should've gone down there in the first place as it turns out). A bit of ticketing angst, got that sorted out by asking another guard at the port only to find our boat had been canceled. However, due the aforementioned early departure they could put us on an hour earlier one. Woo Hoo. Even had time to reconioter, double back and do a cash exchange (required in country as nobody will accept Leks outside Albainia), non-blogger doubled back to give the begging lady some food. We queued, on the terminal hiding from the sun (did I say that it's hot?) and finally got out of there, majestically plying the waters of the Ionian Sea just like the Venetians did all those centuries ago (well may be a bit quicker, but still, the same route).
Here we are in Corfu. In Greece. The room overlooks the port. Its on the 4th floor. The hotel has a lift reminiscent of on we had in Barcelona (so it's clunky and cool....would not pass standards at home).

We are in the UNESCO heritage listed old town area and are therefore once again overwhelmed with sensory overload.
Cross a strait of water. Let two people handle your passport and the price of a drink triples. And they do this without haldron collider. Incredible.
Your blogger was somewhat stressed about SIM cards which worked and then didn't and then did and then didn't again. So much so, we created something to do which was to find a Vodafone shop. Which we did but they were of no use as their job is to sell stuff, not support stuff which has been previously sold elsewhere.
So we decided to wander about the old city and just get lost and thus see what happens. Observations later. Needless to say it's pretty amazing.
Dinner was extremely filling (chicken giros) and the room with a view transpires to have it own bazookie band next door.
Now heard Zorba the Greek 3 times in 2 days. A tad concerned here about what is going transpire on that score.

The views out the window (we even have our own historical balcony outside) are fabulous.. All thanks to non-blogger who booked them on purpose. Best include planning as a key ingredient as well.