Woken by barking dogs at 2am and kept awake by barking dogs for the rest of the night. Dawn broke after the 5am call to prayer floated over Gjirokastra - and with daylight the dogs began to ease off, but too late for me to manage to go back to sleep. Andrew & I edged down the precipitous cobble streets until we reached equally precipitous tarmac - which we descended with brakes hard on. We'd both run low on Albanian Lecs, and found an ATM in the modern part of the town. Rushing - I brilliantly managed to withdraw £650 worth of Lec rather than the £65 I'd intended . . . . A great wodge of notes. Will attempt to change into € when we get to Vlore. 12km back up north along the Drinos River valley - then west and 580m of remorseless climb over 14km. Hard going - but, wonderfully, not quite as hard as I'd feared as RidewithGPS had forecast a total ascent of nearly 800m, not realising that the Albanians (bless them) had drilled a mighty 1km tunnel through the summit of the ridge - saving us that killer last couple of hundred metres of climb. Out of the tunnel then a delicious long descent along a mostly straight road - then along flat grasslands to the town of Sarandë sitting on hills down to the Adriatic Coast; the Island of Corfu sitting just a few km offshore. Sarandë wall-to-wall medium-rise jerry-built hotels and tourist-targetted cafés, bars, ice-cream parlours & restaurants. Like the Costa del Sol. Our hotel - the Vola - is newly-built in the same nondescript style as the others. The shore-front crowded with motor boats offering outings. A few dozen bodies catching the sun on the slim sand & gravel beach - but only two or three venturing into the water. It's not yet the high tourist season - and everywhere a hub-bub of construction patching up in a bid to be ready for the onrush. Our legs aching after the morning's climb, Andrew and I take a mound of stinky washing to a laundry and have a late lunch. Tourist-adjusted prices . . . . Tomorrow further north along the inland coastal road - which also looks to be infelicitously mountainous - to Himarë.