Venetian Albania

Wherever you go in the Eastern Mediterranean you can find traces of Venice’s maritime empire – not usually impressive pieces of architecture, more likely forts, towers, harbours, bastions – functional constructions for trade and defence. I guess that Butrint – Butrinto to Venice – in southern Albania is no exception. I spent half a day there in September. There’s a quite wonderful classical site– a green oasis of undisturbed antiquity – set beside a tranquil lake, where cormorants flap slowly across the water and fishermen in rowing boats idle away days with views across to the low hills of Northern Greece. The ancient Greeks certainly knew how to choose a site.

And then there’s the Venetian fort on the opposite shore looking out towards Corfu. It’s a stubby triangular blockhouse – how unromantic the Venetians were when it came to what mattered – guarding trade routes, shovelling money efficiently back to the mother city to build all those palazzi on the Grand Canal…but they were just about everywhere.