Gjirokastër

Gjirokaster is a small and very beautiful town of just under 30 000 inhabitants on the E853 road. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, which is no surprise when you visit the old town, with its stone cobbled streets criss-crossing the old town. Gjirokaster is also known as the birthplace of dictator Enver Hoxha.

Gjirokaster is built into the side of a mountain. The higher you dare to drive, the less you can turn, and the road becomes very much like a labyrinth. The only way to find your way back is to decide whether the road is going up or down. Navigators tend to steer where they shouldn’t and you can only find your hotel by luck. We had once booked a room on Booking.com in a hotel that was not even accessible by car. The path to the hotel went through sheep fences, with donkeys braying and laughing at us as we dragged our suitcases.

The road to Gjirokaster is in very good condition, either from Vlora along the Vjosa river or from the Greek border. From Sarandë you can also reach Gjirokaster by a breathtakingly beautiful road over high mountains. This route also includes the popular attraction of the Blue eye (Syri i Kaltër), with crystal clear, almost ice-cold water.

The main road, the E853, runs through a flat area surrounded by mountains, through agricultural plains. Along the way, there are many great places to stop and take pictures. One of these is the Autogrill Roberti in Tepelenë, with a spectacular view of the Vjosa river and the mountains on the other side.

From the flat main road, you have no idea that when you turn into Gjirokaster, you start uphill, which goes on and on as the streets narrow towards the large and reasonably well-preserved castle in the old town of Gjirokaster. High on a hill, the Ottoman-era castle rises up, offering a spectacular view of the town below and its surroundings. The castle offers the best general view of the city. On the way to the lookout, those interested in military history can admire the German and Italian cannons of the First and Second World Wars. There is also a Cold War-era American plane that crash-landed in Tirana.

Since 1968, every few years a large folk music festival (Festivali Folklorik Kombëtar) has been held in Gjirokaster Castle. We had the opportunity to participate in this wonderful festival in the summer of 2023. There was a sense of great popular celebration in the air as thousands of festival-goers began to gather on the castle’s terrace as the evening waned. The setting was perfect for this type of celebration and the sound system worked well. Some people had come to picnic on the grass, some had climbed the stone walls, some were standing and enjoying the performances, and some were dancing to Volare as the sun set behind the mountains. According to the press release, the festival featured an impressive 1200 dancers, singers and musicians from different countries. I was surprised by the positive and peaceful atmosphere. People were just enjoying the spectacle. I did not notice any excesses caused by excessive alcohol. As the evening turned to night, we walked into town in a sea of people. The party continued there in full swing with bands playing in the squares. It was clearly a party for the whole family, as there were a surprising number of young children going along. The evening ended with a colourful fireworks display, which we had time to watch from the window of our comfortable hotel room.

After waking up in the morning, I went for a walk. My hotel home was so high up that it was almost the only option to go downhill unless you wanted to crawl back towards the castle. The streets were still pretty quiet after the party. There were a few older people around who were excited about the camera. They were doing the familiar morning chores of spraying water without sparing water from the sand dust in front of their home port. For Albanians, it is important to keep the street side of their homes or business premises tidy.

After half an hour of walking, I was starting to miss breakfast and headed back to the hotel. The uphill walk was such a tough effort on a hot summer morning that my shirt felt quite damp and a shower was necessary. Tables were set in the beautiful and bright dining area. The attentive staff smiled cheerfully as they asked us what we would like for breakfast. We received and ate what we ordered, and after retiring to our room, satisfied, we settled down for a short rest.

With the thermometer starting to rise to the typical summer temperatures of close to thirty degrees, it was a good time to go in search of the famous bazaar area of Gjirokaster. They say that one of the best things to do in Gjirokaster is to take a tour of the bazaar area of the old town. The bazaar area is a network of labyrinthine limestone-lined streets that have been traded in since Ottoman times. You can choose the café that appeals to you or sit down for a longer meal in one of the many restaurants. We were content to wander around and browse the colourful array of small shops with their souvenirs, rugs and ceramics. We enjoyed the shady spots created by the buildings and admired the traditional architecture, which gives a sense of the unique atmosphere of this city.

Then something happened that had never happened before on our trips to Albania. In front of a shop, someone tapped me on the shoulder and apologised for the disturbance. He had heard us speaking Finnish and decided to check. We met the first Finnish tourists in Albania. It was a nice young couple who had seen a lot of the world, with whom we arranged a date for the same evening and had dinner together. The next day they decided to come with us to Vlora. In Albania we have never before bumped into Finns by chance. You hear Swedish quite often there, which may be because there are direct flights from Sweden to Tirana.

Gjirokaster is also home to the Cold War doomsday “Cold war tunnel”, dug deep under the castle. The tunnel museum is an underground bunker that served as an emergency shelter for local authorities during the end of the communist period in Albania (1944-1990). This bunker and the countless smaller bunkers that can be found throughout the country reflect the paranoia of the Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha.

The bunker was built secretly in the early 1970s and is 800 metres long with 59 rooms. Gjirokastër Bunker is in its original state, so when you visit it you can experience the original and almost authentic Cold War atmosphere. The main entrance to the tunnel is near the municipal hall, which was once the headquarters of the Party Committee. The museum has only been open to the public since 2014. A tour of the tunnel takes about 20 minutes. I have heard that people suffering from claustrophobia should skip this attraction.(https://visit-gjirokastra.com/article/the_cold_war_tunnel)