The Butrint National Park is a national park 18 kilometers south of Sarandë. The park is mainly hilly terrain with freshwater lakes, wetlands, salt marshes, open plains, reed beds and islands.

Butrint’s archaeological heritage is one of the country’s most important the area has the largest collection of ancient ruins in Albania and has been occupied since the Stone Age.

The ruins date back to 800BC when the Chaonians who occupied the coastal regions around west Greece and Albania founded Butrint. It became a Roman colony much later, then a Byzantine town and was a trading hub for the Venetians before being abandoned in medieval times. There are still numerous monuments, including the walls of the city, a late-antiquity baptistery, a great basilica, a roman theater and two castles. Butrint’s museum even houses a Venetian medieval tower.

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