Saranda Attractions

Saranda stands on the site of ancient Onchesmos, and its past shows in the town itself: the remains of a 5th or 6th-century synagogue in the centre, a stretch of old masonry beside the promenade, and the ruined Monastery of the Forty Saints on the hill that gave the town its name. The promenade, rebuilt along 1.2 km of the bay, links these with the town's small museums of archaeology, tradition and art.

South of town lies Butrint, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992, where a walled city with Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian layers holds a theatre, a baptistery, a Great Basilica and a museum inside the Venetian castle. Around it, the Vivari Channel holds Ali Pasha's sea fort and a Venetian triangular fort, and the national park declared in 2000 takes in the lagoon and the islets off Ksamil.

Above the coast stand Lëkurësi Castle, ordered in 1537, the hilltop Monastery of Saint George, the Kakome monastery and the castle at Borsh, and inland the Blue Eye spring rises in protected woodland at Muzinë, about 18 km from Saranda.