"Saranda and southern Albania, 1988 and... " a Sarande Travel Page by JLBG

The Illyrian tribe of the Chaonians founded the city and named it Onchesmos. It has never been ruled by the Romans but several mosaics dug out show that it had many trade exchanges with the Roman world and was a wealthy city in the 2nd-3rd century BC. Ali Pasha of Tepelena used it as a port for Ioannina. However, there are almost no remains of the past except a few diggings.

Sarandė/Saranda is the Albanian name for the Greek Saranda, meaning "forty", named after the Byzantine monastery of the "Forty Saints".

When I first visited it, in 1988, most of the city dated back only from the 50s. On my second visit, in May 2007, I found that a great many new buildings had been built and were still building, though some parts of the city center remained unchanged. In 2007, we spent a very limited time in Saranda (actually, just enough time to have a yummy pizza with a beer) and did not visit the town. In 2009, we took a little more time. The modern city is beautiful, well built and very pleasant but Saranda has no real ancient part with a significant architecture.