Parking in Sarande is manageable if you know the rules; parking in Ksamil in July and August is the hardest part of a Riviera day trip. Sarande's blue zone (zona blu) charges 100 lek/h (about 1 euro) in Zone A on the main waterfront streets from April to September, 50 lek/h in Zone B and off-season, enforced roughly 08:00 to 22:00; annual reserved spaces cost 150,000 lek for Zone A and 75,000 lek for Zone B. Free street parking exists only uphill, around Rruga Eduard Lear and above Hotel Brilant, a 5 to 10 minute walk from the promenade; the official Porti Detar Sarande port lot charges 200 lek for up to one hour or a flat 500 lek for 24 hours, with electric vehicles free. Ksamil has no municipal parking system at all: private roadside and coastal lots run 500 to 800 lek a day, beach-club lots charge around 500 lek or waive the fee with sunbed or food spend, and informal attendants ask 300 to 500 lek, with reported peak-weekend spikes up to 1,500 to 2,500 lek; lots fill by 09:00 to 10:00 in July and August and free up again after about 17:00. Beach-adjacent attendants operate in a legal grey zone under Law 139/2015 and Bashkia Sarande's 2024 public-space regulation, but no published registry confirms individual licenses, so the safest signal is a uniform, a printed price board, and a dated fature (receipt); refusing an unlicensed attendant is not illegal but carries real physical risk, since a July 2026 Ksamil altercation ended in an assault arrest and Sarande has a historical fatal-stabbing case tied to a parking dispute, and in May 2026 the Police Oversight Agency (AMP) arrested municipal inspectors and police officers in Sarande and Ksamil for tolerating illegal use of public land. Enforcement is real: in the first week of July 2025 Sarande traffic police issued 1,157 administrative measures, standard illegal parking runs 500 to 3,000 lek, blue-zone non-payment adds roughly 1,000 to 2,000 lek, a July 2025 sidewalk-blocking case brought a 20,000 lek fine plus a criminal charge under Penal Code Article 293, and towing retrieval (karrotrec, no wheel clamps) costs about 4,000 lek on top of any fine. Day-trip parking varies by site: Butrint National Park's own lot is free (1,000 lek adult entry, 500 lek ages 12 to 18, free under 12), with the Vivari Channel cable ferry as a 7 euro per car overflow option and foot passengers crossing free; the Blue Eye (Syri i Kalter) charges 200 lek per car to park and 50 lek per person to enter, with cars banned past the gate; Lekuresi Castle is free for both parking and entry; Mirror Beach (Plazhi i Pasqyrave) has a mandatory 400 to 500 lek parking fee for its 20 to 25 car cliffside lot, and nearby Pulebardha charges 400 lek. All state-run points (port, Butrint, Blue Eye) take lek only, no cards or euros; informal attendants and some beach-club lots accept euros but round to about 100 lek per euro versus the official Bank of Albania rate near 97.5 lek per euro, an effective 2.5 percent markup, so withdrawing lek in Sarande before heading out is the cheapest option.