Berat & Gjirokastër: the back story

Berat and Gjirokastër share a UNESCO World Heritage listing and a gift for drama, each crowned by a castle. One is white and full of windows; the other is grey stone, tower houses and cobbles.

A castle still lived in

Berat’s Kala, mostly 13th century, sits high above the Osum river and remains home to families, among Byzantine churches and the ruined Red Mosque. In the Church of the Dormition, the Onufri Museum shows icons by the 16th-century painter who trained in Venice and whose red still glows on the panels.

The thousand windows

Below the castle, the white Ottoman houses of Mangalem climb the hillside window over window. Across the river in Gorica, Muzaka Boutique Hotel looks straight back at them. South-east of town, the Osumi river has cut a deep limestone canyon near Çorovodë, rafted in spring and tubed in summer.

The stone town

Gjirokastër’s castle, one of the largest in the Balkans, looks over the Drino valley from 336 metres. Below it, the cobbled old bazaar circles the 16th-century Bazaar Mosque, and tower houses such as Skenduli House, begun in 1700, are often shown by the families who own them.

Berat’s castle is not a ruin: families still live in its old stone houses.

Our advice: Climb both castles early in the day in summer, wear good shoes, and leave late afternoon for the old lanes.