Salaora is an island, but Ali Pasha of Ioannina built a road to connect it to the mainland. He was keen to develop the port to improve the export of timber from his lands around the castle of Rogoi, as well as grain and produce from the rich farmland in the plain of Arta. There had never been a permanent settlement here, with the exception of the essential infrastructure required by the thriving trade (custom house, quay, warehouses), but Ali Pasha ordered the forced relocation here of a small community from Himara in Albania. The hapless families suffered from malaria in the mosquito-infested waters and abandoned Salaora as soon as Ali died in 1821.