The Porto Palermo () is a

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

in southwestern Albania. In the middle of the bay there is a small peninsula, it connection to the mainland serves as a parking space for campers and it has sandy beach.

Porto Palermo fortress

On the peninsula is a well-preserved old fortress, the ''Kalaja e Porto Palermos'' (''Castle of Porto Palermo ''). The complex with a triangular

ground plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensi ...

and three round corner bastions is similar to the triangular fortress in Butrint. It was once located in a restricted military area and was still used by the Albanian military during the

communist times Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

. Today the fortress is accessible for a small fee and can be explored. The dark vaults lead to the roof, from where you have a good view of the bay. The history of its origins and construction is not entirely clear. Mostly it is said that the fortress was built at the beginning of the 19th century by

Ali Pasha of Ioannina Ali Pasha of Ioannina (1740 – 24 January 1822), was an Albanian ruler who served as pasha of a large part of western Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European territories, which was referred to as the Pashalik of Yanina. His court was in Ioanni ...

when he declared the independence of his

Eyalet Eyalets ( Ottoman Turkish: ایالت, , English: State), also known as beylerbeyliks or pashaliks, were a primary administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. From 1453 to the beginning of the nineteenth century the Ottoman local government ...

from

Ioannina Ioannina ( el, Ιωάννινα ' ), often called Yannena ( ' ) within Greece, is the capital and largest city of the Ioannina regional unit and of Epirus, an administrative region in north-western Greece. According to the 2011 census, the c ...

and the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. Ali Pasha of Ioannina had fortresses built and renovated in the entire south of what is now Albania. The around 1500 The triangular

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetian and the like may also refer to: * Venetian language, a Romance language s ...

fortress built on the

Channel of Vivari The Vivari Channel ( Albanian: Kanali i Butrintit, also known as Butrinto River) links Lake Butrint in Albania with the Straits of Corfu, and forms a border of the peninsula of Butrint. The channel flows in both directions, from the lake to ...

in Butrint is said to have served as a model for Porto Palermo. Fortifications already existed before. Perhaps there was already a Venetian fortification, which at the same time as the one in Butrint before the advent of the

Bastion A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...

ärsystems was built in the fortress. It is said that in 1662 the Turks modernized an existing fortress in Porto Palermo or built a new fortress in Porto Palermo.Peter Bartl "On the topography and history of the Himara landscape in southern Albania" Munich journal for Balkan customers. Martin Camaj Volume 7–8 Munich 1991 Pages 311 –354 The facility was primarily used to control the local population in the greater Himara area, who had repeatedly revolted against the Turks. Like the Souliotes, the inhabitants of Himara fought against Ali Pasha of Ioannina around 1800, who sometimes oppressed them in a very bloody way. The construction activities at the fortress of Porto also took place during this period Palermo. As a result, the region became quiet. In 1803, Ali Pasha offered the port and the fortress, which at that time only had four or five guns, to the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

Submarine base and bunker

At the northern end of the bay of Porto Palermo there is a former

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

- base of the Albanian Naval Force with a well blown into the mountain, from the castle and the coastal road visible submarine pen. The complex cannot be seen from the sea. The base is practically unused today, but is still owned by the navy, which has two small patrol boats e stationed there, and is therefore a restricted military area. Porto Palermo was an important base of the Albanian navy during the rule of

Enver Hoxha Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...

. After the establishment of the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

in 1955, of which Albania was a founding member, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

stationed twelve of the Whiskey-class submarines in the Pasha Liman Base at the southwest end of the bay of Vlora. As the Soviet Union 1960/61 ended its military presence in Albania at the request of Hoxha, Hoxha took four of the boats ('' S-241 '', '' S-242 '', '' S-358 '', '' S-360 '') to, who drove with Albanian crews. Albania then leaned on

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, and with Chinese help one began in the s late 1960s with the construction of the submarine tunnel in Porto Palermo. However, China soon withdrew from the joint venture, so that Albania completed the construction on its own at enormous cost. The tunnel is more than 650 meters long a Report prepared in 2007 for the Albanian government and the World Bank speaks of a length of 800 meters: Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Telecommunication, Albania
Southern Coastal Development Plan - Strategic Environmental Assessment; Final Report.
COWI, Copenhagen, December 2007, p. 17. and 12 meters high and provided space for four 75 meter long submarines of the ''Whiskey Class''. Inside were all the necessary supply systems. The associated barracks are now largely empty and in a rather neglected condition. Even the fence is hardly in place. Nothing is known about the condition inside the submarine bunker.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Porto Palermo (Albania) Bays of Albania Bodies of water of Albania Tourist attractions in Albania Geography of Vlorë County Tourist attractions in Vlorë County Albanian Ionian Sea Coast