Hairy Lemon

Saranda


With a prime 8th-floor location, a clean beach at its base and a friendly, helpful atmosphere, this Irish-run backpacker hostel is a good place to chill. There's an open-plan kitchen and lounge, and two cramped and often quite hot dorm rooms, although the fans and sea breezes help temper things a bit. The unlimited breakfast pancakes are always a hit.

Follow the port road for around 10 minutes and continue when it becomes dirt; it's the orange-and-yellow apartment block on your right.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Saranda attractions

1. Synagogue

0.63 MILES

These ruins of a 5th-century synagogue are located right in the heart of town and provide evidence of one of the earliest Balkan-Jewish communities. There…

2. Museum of Archaeology

0.7 MILES

This one-room museum houses a well-preserved 3rd-century mosaic floor and has a display about the nearby ruins at Butrint. It's one block behind the…

3. Ethnological Museum

0.75 MILES

Housed in Saranda's old customs house overlooking the town wharf, this interesting museum contains many fascinating photographs from the communist era,…

4. Saranda Art Gallery

0.78 MILES

This excellent gallery overlooking the seafront has high-quality temporary exhibits, with many works coming down from the National Gallery in Tirana.

5. Lekursi Castle

1.66 MILES

This former castle is now a very average restaurant, but come here for the superb views over Saranda and Butrint lagoon, especially at sunset. A taxi here…

6. Butrint

8.74 MILES

Early in the morning, before the tourist crowds arrive and when the rocks are still tinged in the yellow dawn light, you might just imagine that the…

7. Bunec

10.75 MILES

The last relatively undeveloped spot on the Albanian Riviera, before the urban sprawl of Saranda begins, is Bunec. The pebbly beach is divided in two by a…

8. Blue Eye Spring

11.07 MILES

The Blue Eye Spring is a magical place: a hypnotic pool of deep blue water surrounded by electric-blue edges like the iris of an eye. It's further…