Gjirokastër

Gjirokastër rises in tiers up the slope of Mount Gjerë in southern Albania, its slate-roofed stone houses overlooking the Drino Valley some 300 metres below. UNESCO inscribed the old town on its World Heritage list in 2005 as a rare and exceptionally well-preserved example of an Ottoman-era Balkan town. Walking its steep cobbled lanes, with their high stone walls and wooden balconies, is the closest thing in Europe to walking into the 18th century.

The Castle

The castle is one of the largest in the Balkans, occupying a long ridge above the city and visible from kilometres in every direction. A fortress has stood here since at least the 12th century, but most of what survives is from the Ottoman period and the early 20th century. Inside, a long stone gallery houses captured artillery from both world wars, a National Armaments Museum, and, on the upper ramparts, an American reconnaissance plane forced down in 1957 and kept here ever since. The views from the walls, over the slate roofs of the old town, the Drino Valley and the mountains beyond, are some of the finest in Albania.

The Stone Town

Below the castle, the old town is laid out along a series of cobbled streets that wind between Ottoman tower houses built between the 17th and 19th centuries. The Zekate House and the Skenduli House are the two most striking, three-storey fortified mansions with elaborate painted ceilings, carved wooden interiors, and rooms arranged according to the strict hierarchies of an Ottoman household. The bazaar quarter at the centre of the old town is still a working district of cafés, antique shops and craft stalls, and remains one of the best places in Albania to buy traditional textiles and silver.

The Cold War Tunnel

Hidden beneath the city, a massive Cold War bunker was carved into the rock during the 1970s, 800 metres of corridors and 59 rooms designed to house local Party officials in the event of a nuclear or chemical attack. Its existence was kept secret from the city's own residents until the 1990s. Today it is open to the public as a guided 20-minute walk through largely unrestored spaces, interrogation rooms, sleeping quarters, an air-filtration room, that capture the paranoia of the Hoxha years more vividly than any conventional museum could.

Birthplace of Writers and a Dictator

Gjirokastër is the birthplace of both Albania's most celebrated novelist, Ismail Kadare, and its long-ruling communist dictator, Enver Hoxha. Kadare's childhood home has been restored as a small museum dedicated to his life and work. Hoxha's birthplace, on a different street, now houses the city's Ethnographic Museum. The proximity of the two, one to a writer who spent decades writing under, and around, censorship, and the other to the man who imposed it, is one of the quiet ironies of the city.

Getting there

Gjirokastër is about 230 kilometres south of Tirana and 35 kilometres north of Sarandë, making it a natural stop on any route between the Riviera and the capital. The old town is best explored on foot, though the climb between the lower town and the castle is steep and the cobblestones unforgiving, comfortable shoes are essential.