Marina di Orikum – Tuesday 3 July 2018

We got up at 8:30 and got ready to go out.  It is an extremely hot and sunny day.  We met our taxi driver exactly at 10 and off we went.  We are going to an archeological site about an hours drive away called Apollonia.  We were surprised to be driven back almost half way to Durres to this place. 

The site is very large, but barely excavated.  Much of what there is has been reconstructed because the town was destroyed in an earthquake about 1800 years ago!  It really was interesting, but very badly presented.  There were signs about the ruins, but half of them were missing.  There was no hand out map of the site and although there were posters with maps they were pretty much unintelligible.  We tried to buy a guidebook, but the shop had no change! 

Despite this we had a fairly good look around and did a lot of walking in the noonday sun.  We missed one or two of the ruins because there were no signs directing us to them.  The museum was quite good with lots of Grecian urns and classical sculptures. One of the best bits was a 13thcentury church and refectory said to have been built with some of the ancient stones.



On the way home our taxi driver got us to a bakery and market where we bought some things for lunch over the next few days.

Back to the boat we cleaned the boat and fill the water.  Then disaster struck.  I went to do the washing up and found that the water pump has stopped altogether!  I just can’t believe it.  The only positive is that we are in a marina and have unlimited access to water on the pontoon. So we have filled up a bucket to keep in the heads for washing and have filled the kettle and a thermos for extra water.  We have plenty of drinking water and with luck only two days to cope before we are back in Corfu. I am miserable but I guess we will cope.  I have already told Richard that if we can’t fix it quickly I will want to book into an hotel or flat before we go home.  I could kill those damned Italians.  I said all along they made a mess of everything!

As I didn’t want to use water to cook and wash up we went out for a meal.  It was quite nice including sea urchin pasta.  I think I will be throwing away a lot of food in the light of this.

We have already checked out of the marina so we can leave as early as we can manage tomorrow.  It is another 60 mile trek to Sarande.  We have lined up the agent who will get us a berth and the weather forecast looks benign.  So let us keep our fingers crossed.  


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