After the fantastic tour to North Macedonia, I decided to join Ilir (tour guide extraordinaire!) for day two: a trip to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Berat and to the “old town” area of Durrës. It was a (thankfully!) shorter tour than the previous day, but well worth the trip. Joining me on the tour were 4 Italians, which made for an animated crowd (and I got to overhear debates about Italian vs. Albanian olive oil!). As with the previous day, traffic out of Tirana was complete gridlock (to the point we actually turned around and took a different part of the ‘ring road’ out of the city). Fortunately, that gave Ilir the opportunity to share more about Italian-Albanian relations (the tour itself was formally given in Italian, so I was picking up bits and pieces given my understanding of some cognates from Spanish and from my own time in Italy, although Ilir did give me the shortened version of most of the info in English as well!).

Some interesting tidbits:

• Albania and Italy have a longstanding diplomatic relationship and have, over the centuries, long been political allies – in fact, there’s a very large Albanian presence in Italy and, during the Ottoman period, the Arbëreshë people left Albania to settle in Sicily where they retain a cultural presence (fun fact – this is actually the group that my family descends from in Sicily, so despite being fourth-generation Italian, I guess I’m a little Albanian, too!)
• When Albania was gaining independence in 1912, the Kingdom of Italy was a big supporter, and in WWI (~1917), the Kingdom of Italy actually developed a “protectorate” for Albania, becoming de facto leaders
• The National Bank of Albania was founded with Italy’s help, introducing the LEK as the currency
• Communism ended the strong relationship between the countries (Albania essentially went dark with everyone, as I learned at the House of Leaves museum in Tirana), but diplomatic relations opened back up once the Albanian communist period ended
• The relationship continues today, with Albania sending doctors to Italy during COVID-19 when the Italian healthcare system was struggling to cope with the widespread impact on its healthcare system

Beyond this, it’s clear that Italy and Albania have shared components of the food culture as well – while Albanian cuisine is distinct in many, many ways from Italian, we’ve seen staples like pizza, pasta and Italian-style steakhouses everywhere we’ve traveled in Albania. Of course, Albanians have made these dishes their own, so it’s been fun to compare and contrast nuances in tomato-based sauces, etc.

Of course, we had to stop for a coffee and cigarette break (as Ilir said, “A coffee without a cigarette is like a Turk without a religion!”), and after about 2 hours had begun to enter the beautiful foothills surrounding the town of Berat. Interestingly, these foothills are a sight within themselves – during the communist period, Albania discovered oil reserves and put in infrastructure to produce their own stores. While most of this machinery is no longer functional (and the hills have been converted to agricultural use), some of these ~’60s-70s era rigs are still operational).

There’s also a NATO airbase (apparently used today to launch operations related to the Ukraine war), which ironically has a large Russian plane parked only a couple blocks away.

Just a few miles later, we arrived at the main event of the day, the UNESCO World Heritage site that is the city of Berat (there is also a “new” Berat, which was built in the communist period that is not considered part of the UNESCO-protected site). The highlight of the town is the Berat Castle, which imposingly sits high atop a cliff overlooking the surrounding region.

Somewhat confusingly, locals refer to the entire community within the castle walls as the “Castle” itself; this only became a clear distinction when we made our way down the back half of the cliff and saw the “Old Town” Berat, which has both a Christian quarter and a Muslim quarter built in the Ottoman period.

Amazingly enough, the community living within the Castle have been there continuously through to the modern period; we saw many folks going about their daily business, including one gentleman who was carrying his New Years Eve turkey with him (turkeys are apparently the traditional meat for the NYE / New Year’s festivities and we saw little paddocks filled with them lining the roads as we drove through the countryside).

Given its the holiday season, most of the churches and museums weren’t open, but the ruins of the old castle and countryside views were worth the trip. In part, the castle dates back to Roman times and also has many Byzantine-style churches as well as the famed Ottoman architecture that was built later.

Within the town, there is a museum of ecclesiastic art (closed during our visit) and a couple churches (also closed during our visit, although Ilir did his best to get us a picture of the interior!). The ruins also include a Roman-era cistern, which apparently used crushed eggshells to waterproof the walls.

While many of the churches were closed, the exterior architecture was lovely (and one includes a statue of the famous Constantine, who is credited with spreading Christianity).

The other Byzantine church was similarly beautiful, located up a steep path on the side of the city. Thankfully, there was a bar at the top of the hill!

From there, the highlights really included the view as we walked back to the castle entrance en route to the “Old Town” down the cliff. The mountains in the distance are incredibly beautiful (and Ilir found many opportunities for us to do scary photoshoots hanging over the outcroppings!).

Along the way, we also saw the “red mosque” (of which the minaret still stands, left below) which predates the Ottoman period, suggesting that this area was in use as a trade route long before Islam was a major religion in Albania. We also passed the site of the former St. George church, which was destroyed during communism and upon which a cement restaurant in the “Ottoman” style was erected.

The “Old Town” area of the town was similarly shuttered for the holidays, but the views were nice. On one side of the river is the “Muslim quarter” while the other side has the “Christian corner”. On the Muslim side, the main point of interest at ground level is the “Bachelor mosque” so called because back in the day, most of the patrons were bachelors who worked on the main road.

Sadly, once I began to climb the labyrinth that is the series of narrow, cobblestone passageways that make up the interior of the Muslim quarter, my day began to take a turn for the worse. Of course, the architecture itself was lovely – the Ottomans aimed to have windows facing outwards, so most of the interior is closed walls / doors.

However, we were late in the afternoon so trying to find an open restaurant for lunch was a challenge; I ended up visiting Restaurant Beratino. The waiter was incredibly friendly as he informed me that over half the menu was no longer available (never a good sign). I ordered the Qofta plate, which smelled delicious but sadly was raw in the middle, so I just ate the french fries.

After lunch, we continued on through the communist-era portion of the town and made our way to our next stop of the day, Durrës.

Located along the waterfront, Durrës is (confusingly) the name of a county, a town and a general region (we are actually staying here for the remainder of our time in Albania, yet our hotel is over an hour away from the downtown Durrës area explored on the tour).

Durrës is another town that was settled during the Roman period and served a very important function during antiquity, connecting the port of Brindisi in Italy to the trade routes on the eastern side of the Adriatic. In antiquity, it was a huge city that effectively acted as a continuation of the Via Appia and would have had a famous “golden gate” as with the three other major cities of interest along the way.

As a result, most of the things to see in the old town are ruins from the Roman period (including the biggest Roman amphitheatre discovered in the Balkans) and Byzantine period. Sadly, there have been several major earthquakes in the region and most of the ruins from antiquity have actually slid into the Adriatic, making it a popular destination for underwater archeology.

Modern sights exist in the small downtown Durrës area as well, including a communist style main square (theater on side side, municipal government buildings on the other side) and a mosque that was rebuilt after being destroyed during communism. There is also a big sculpture of a “sail” (which apparently cost several million Euros that most folks feel could have been used more appropriately).

We also stopped by the statue of the “Unknown Soldier” from the period of communism; Albanians have a tradition of climbing their statues and, of course, we partook in that cultural experience – I have to say, it was scary and I do not think I’ll be scaling statues ~30 feet in the air anytime soon!

Overall, quite a small town to explore, but worth the visit if you’re able to stomach the traffic. Apparently, the port of Durrës is actually going to be moving, as a Dubai-based company is in the process of investing 3 billion Euro into a new marina / yacht development with luxury apartments.

During the summer, Durrës is a popular tourist destination and as a result, there are many hotels. For those looking for a nice spa experience, the Hammam-style treatments at the Melía Durrës were excellent.

The traffic back to Tirana from Durrës was an experience in and of itself, but we made it!

As mentioned, we’ve spent the remainder of our trip in Durrës just relaxing (most things in Albania are closed both January 1 and January 2, so not much to do). Next time, I’d love to see more of Albania’s southern region and visit nearby Kosovo. Overall, highly recommend Albania to anyone!