Appunti di un naturalista in Albania meridionale (1995-2007)

The name Albania could be cognate with the term Alba which, in Italian, means sunrise, or with the Latin Albus, which means white. This land, at least for the easternmost Italians, those inhabiting the Salento Peninsula, appears at the first light of each day, with its skyline of high and white mountains on the other side of the Otranto Sea. The book from where this contribution has been extracted was realized after several years of visits and excursions in Albania (1995-2007) for professional reasons. Although revised, the book, and its present derived part, still preserve its spontaneous character, just to testify my first impression (sometimes not correct) of each situation I faced with. My wish, trough the present contribution, is to represent a standard western citizen (me) involved in a culture (the South Albanian one) of which he has not knowledge, and to represent also all his volountee to understand it.