Day Tour to Gjirokastra & Blue Eye from Saranda

From the coast of Saranda, a one-hour drive through the Albanian countryside brings you to one of Europe’s most dramatic medieval cities. Gjirokastra — inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a rare example of Ottoman-era architecture — rises like a stone fortress from the valley, its slate-roofed houses cascading down a steep hillside, crowned by a magnificent medieval castle that has stood for over 2,500 years.

This is a city that wears its history openly. The same cobblestoned streets that Ottoman traders walked are still walked today. The same mountain breezes that once cooled Albanian beys still cool the terraces of its restaurants. Gjirokastra is authentic, alive, and utterly unforgettable.

On your return journey, your tour stops at one of Albania’s most remarkable natural phenomena: the Blue Eye (Syri i Kaltër). Buried deep in a forest of towering trees, this natural spring produces an astonishing 8.5 cubic metres of crystal-clear water every second from a depth of over 50 metres. Its colour — an impossibly vivid cobalt blue at the centre, fading to turquoise at the edges — is what gives it its name. Standing at its edge and gazing into its depths is one of those travel experiences that stays with you forever.