Italian documentary about Albania's coast

It was a pleasant surprise today to watch a documentary produced by Italian television “Linea Blu” about Albania’s 474 km long coast, spanning from the Adriatic to the Ionian seas. This successful program by RAI TV has explored on a weekly basis, for the past 15 years, the coastal areas of Italy, above and below the water level. This time, apparently, it decided to step a bit further to the east, and to visit also the country with which Italy has had, and continues to have traditional relationships since centuries ago. Albania is, in fact, the closest nation, not bordering with Italy, but directly across from its heel, with only 60 miles separating the bay of Vlora from the port of Brindisi.

Although this program was originally aired in Italy on June 21st, the timing seems quite appropriate in view also of the very recent European gathering “Paris Summit for the Mediterranean” that took place about a week ago in France. Albania was also represented at this assembly of 43 nations that, on July 13th, issued an interesting “declaration” with ambitious plans ahead (available in PDF format when clicking on the above title).

Obviously the Italian television crew and reporter had access to some areas not normally visited by the occasional tourist thanks to the Italian armed units and Coast Guards still stationed in Albania, such as on the island of Saseno in the bay of Vlora, which is still considered today a military zone. This area has always been a strategic point of control of the Otranto Canal, and here many ships sank over the years, and now are being explored by scuba divers. It is also very close and overlooking the entire Karaburun peninsula, which, with its numerous large caves and underwater passages, has been the stage of many sorties and the base of covert operations during WWII in Albania, so beautifully described by Peter Lucas in his book about the OSS.

Interesting were the interviews with local fishermen, local authorities like the mayor of Saranda, the Italian Ambassador, and even the clip taken from an earlier reportage about Mussolini’s daughter. On March 14, 1941 she was traveling as a ‘volunteer nurse’ and was rescued when the Italian ship that she was traveling on was sunk in the Otranto Canal. The current underwater research about this ship pointed out that this was originally a luxury vessel transformed into a military Red Cross transport, when it was torpedoed by the British. Amazingly, most of its furnishings are clearly identifiable and still well preserved.

This is the first time that “Linea Blu” has been filming along the Albanian coast and underwater, and it covered a lot of ground in the one hour long program, but it did not spend much time talking about the local cuisine, which is what they usually do in Italy toward the end of the program. The display of local dishes was a good, but a brief one, especially when the conversation began to delve into less known delicacies such as “burek”…...

Much is still to be done for tourism in Albania, but see how inviting can be its southern 'riviera', for instance. As I've indicated elsewhere in this blog, foreigners are flocking into the country by air, by car, by boat, and their number continues to increase because there is much, still unknown there, to be explored and enjoyed.