For forty-five years no civilian set foot on Sazan Island. The 5.7-square-kilometre limestone outcrop, floating three nautical miles west of Vlorë, served as the Albanian navy's most fortified garrison from 1944 until democratic transition in 1991. Soviet engineers carved submarine bunkers into the eastern cliffs during the Hoxha alliance era; Italian coastal artillery emplacements from the 1930s still command the northern headland. When the military withdrew in the early 1990s, the island's forty kilometres of tunnels, barracks, and ammunition depots were left to weather and wild boar. In 2010, Albania opened Sazan to civilian boats, designating the surrounding waters — together with the adjoining Karaburun Peninsula — a national marine park spanning 125.58 square kilometres of Mediterranean coastline. Today a Sazan Island Albania tour departs from Vlorë harbour and crosses the Strait of Otranto in fifteen to twenty-five minutes, depending on sea state and vessel type. The military zones remain cordoned, but visitors walk freely along the harbour mole, past rusting patrol-boat moorings and stencilled Cyrillic signage. The island's biodiversity draws as much interest as its cold-war architecture: Mediterranean monk seals, loggerhead turtles, and over two hundred fish species inhabit the park's protected reefs. Posidonia meadows carpet the shallows; peregrine falcons nest on the western escarpments. Tour operators combine the island landing with visits to Haxhi Ali Cave, a seventy-metre sea cavern on Karaburun's limestone flank, and to smaller grottoes accessible only by inflatable tender. The marine park framework, established under Law No. 81/2010, prohibits commercial fishing within three nautical miles of Sazan and restricts anchoring to designated zones. Speedboat tours operate daily from May through October, weather permitting, with departures concentrated between eight and ten in the morning to avoid afternoon meltemi winds. The island's sole permanent structure open to visitors is a restored Italian-era lighthouse on the southern cape; the beam, automated in 2003, still guides tanker traffic through the strait. Free entry applies to the island itself — no conservation levy is charged — but boat transfer and guided excursions require advance booking through licensed Vlorë operators. Most tours include snorkelling gear and allow two to three hours ashore, sufficient to traverse the coastal footpaths and photograph the bunker entrances before the return crossing.