Blue Eye of Sarandë

Getting there

car. Signed off the SH99 between Sarandë and Gjirokastër, about half an hour from Sarandë, with a car park at the entrance and a walk of ten to fifteen minutes in through the wood. There is a fee at the gate.

Parking: Car park at the entrance; it fills with coaches in summer.

Photography

Best light: morning.

The spring sits under tree cover, so the colour needs the sun high enough to get through the canopy and onto the water. That makes the middle of the day the exception here rather than the problem it usually is. Check drone requirements with the AAC before travelling.

Drone: not confirmed. Albania's registration requirement is reported differently by every secondary source, so verify with the AAC before you fly.

The Blue Eye is a karst spring in an oak wood between Sarandë and Gjirokastër, where water comes up out of a hole in the rock, cold all year, at a depth divers have not reached the bottom of.

It is small, and that is the whole problem. The site is a pool, a walkway and a wood, and in July and August it takes coaches from Sarandë, Ksamil and the Corfu ferry from mid-morning onward. There is a fee at the gate.

Come at opening, or come in May or October, or go to Bënjë instead: the thermal pools above Përmet are inland in the same kind of landscape and take a fraction of the traffic.