Gjirokastër: The Stone City Where Albania Whispers Its Ottoman Secrets

An architecture that seems carved from the mountain

Gjirokastër rises from the Drino valley like a sculpture in grey stone. Its tower-houses — massive constructions in limestone blocks with slate roofs that resemble dragon scales — are an architectural uniqueness that exists nowhere else in Europe. Every important family had one, built to withstand sieges, with walls a metre thick, arrow slits instead of windows, and secret rooms for hiding valuables. UNESCO inscribed Gjirokastër on the World Heritage List in 2005, but the city remains outside mass tourism circuits.

From Tirana it's four hours by car (or bus) through southern Albania. From Saranda on the coast, just one hour. The nearest airport is Corfu, reachable by ferry from Saranda in thirty minutes.

The fortress that commands everything

Gjirokastër Castle is the second largest in the Balkans. Built in the twelfth century and expanded by Ali Pasha of Tepelena in the nineteenth, it dominates the city from a rocky hill and houses within it:

- The Arms Museum: a collection of weapons from the Ottoman era to the Second World War.

- An American military aircraft: a Lockheed T-33 displayed in the courtyard, a relic of Hoxha's communist propaganda that claimed to have shot down an American spy plane (the true story is more prosaic: an emergency landing due to mechanical failure).

- The clock tower: panoramic views over the Drino valley and the Lunxhëri mountains.

- The folklore festival: every five years the castle hosts the National Folklore Festival (next in 2028), a massive event with groups from across the country.

The tower-houses

Two tower-houses are open to the public and worth visiting:

Skenduli House, from the seventeenth century, is the best-restored: six floors, carved wooden ceilings, an internal fountain, a private hammam, and a passionate custodian who tells the history of the house as if it were his own family. Zekate House, built in 1811, is the largest and most scenic, with twin towers and a monumental facade visible from across the city.

The bazaar and the lower city

The Old Bazaar is the commercial heart of the Ottoman city: a cobbled uphill street lined with shops selling local crafts — kilim rugs, worked copper objects, mountain honey, medicinal herbs. It is not a museum bazaar: locals still do their shopping here, and the blacksmith, the cobbler, and the barber work as they did a hundred years ago.

In the lower city, the Bazaar Mosque (1757) and the Hammam (today a cultural centre) testify to the Ottoman layering of the city. The birthplace of Enver Hoxha, the communist dictator who ruled Albania for forty years, is today an ethnographic museum — an ironic fate that locals comment on with a bitter smile.

At the table

The cuisine of Gjirokastër is the most refined in southern Albania. The emblematic dish is oshaf, a unique dessert of dried figs cooked in sheep's milk — sweet, creamy, and impossible to find anywhere else. Qifqi (fried rice balls with herbs and eggs) is another exclusive speciality of the city, served as a starter or side dish. Beyond those: mish në hell (meat grilled on stone), lakror (rustic filo pastry with vegetables), and the cheese djathë i bardhë, similar to feta.

Restaurants in the bazaar offer terraces with views over the valley. A full meal costs between seven and twelve euros — Albania remains Europe's most affordable destination.

When to go

From April to June and September–October. Summer is torrid in the Drino valley. Spring is ideal: the mountains are still snow-capped at altitude, the gardens bloom, and the light on the grey stone is perfect. Gjirokastër can be visited in a day, but sleeping in one of the tower-houses converted into guesthouses — with metre-thick stone walls that keep you cool in summer and warm in winter — is an experience worth the journey.