Guided tour of Gjirokaster from Durres

After arriving in Gjirokaster, we will start visiting the old city center. It is a real gem, the best-preserved Ottoman old town in all Balkan area. Locals call it a bazaar, and indeed the old town is a real market. Here you can find merchants of fabrics, souvenirs, rugs, but also many cafes and restaurants in the best Albanian tradition.

We will continue with a visit to the Gjirokastra Castle, built in the XII century. The castle is located on a steep hill and it is better to arrive here by car. The weather in Gjirokaster provides rather high temperatures during the summer days. This fortress has existed since 1200 BC but owes its present form to the renovation commissioned in the 19th century by Ali Pasha Tepelena. There, you will find a museum showing military objects and monuments dedicated to the resistance of the Albanian partisans against the German Nazis. It is an interesting example of a weapons museum built in 1971 for propagandistic purposes. With this tour, you will find out how culture was used to show the Albanian people that Western world superpowers would never be able to conquer the country. The exhibition itinerary in this regard also includes a US Air Force plane, captured during the years of the communist regime (1945-1990). It will also be possible to visit the prisons, used during the communist regime to imprison opponents.

The tour will continue with the visit to Gjirokaster Castle, where you will see the defensive towers, the clock tower, the church, and the cistern. The open spaces are also very beautiful, and it is not a coincidence that this place houses the Gjirokastër national folklore festival every year. During the rest of the day, you will explore the city starting with Qafa e Bazaar’s neighborhood. You will learn about the nicknames that this city owns. The city of silver, the city of thousand steps and the stone city, just to mention a few. Different people and cultures followed each other here and called the city in their own way. The most used nickname is “the city of silver”, it is called so because of the castle, “the silver castle". After raining, the roofs of the houses made of stone shined bright so that they can be compared with silver. The big stones that were used as tiles identify the city, as it was described by Ismail Kadare in his novel - The city of stone.

During your visit to the antique village of Qafa and Bazaar, you will walk along the old cobblestone streets and the local artisan shops. You shouldn’t miss the Skenduli House, an Ottoman villa from 1700, very well conserved in structure as well as in the design. Skenduli House is located in the Old Bazaar area. Among the ottoman houses, we will also find the house of the great Albanian writer Ismail Kadare and the house of Enver Hoxha, the Albanian politician who ruled from 1944 to 1985, that is now the Gjirokaster ethnographical Museum (optional visit).