It wasn’t a very long drive to Gjirokaster, but actually being allowed into the city was quite a challenge. The roads are all cobblestoned and narrow and steep. I took the most logical route to my hotel, but got turned around by the police. So I tried another way up, but all the roads were pedestrian only, so no dice. Between the pedestrian only sections and a bunch of construction going on, I just parked down the hill in a dirt lot, grabbed my backpack and hiked all the way up to my hotel which was almost as high up the hillside as you could go. After checking in, the owner walked with me to fetch the car so he could show me the way that was actually open. I definitely wouldn’t have figured it out on my own.

Gjirokaster is fairly small and everything is centered around it’s famous and monstrous castle and the surrounding bazaar. It’s still unclear when the castle was actually built, but it’s thought to have started in the 4th or 5th century, and of course building and add ons were being done all throughout history.

Before hiking up to the castle, however, I got a tour of the Cold War Tunnel underneath it. The local communist government built it as a nuclear bunker in the early 1960’s, though it was never actually used for that. They have rooms for every dept of government as well as living quarters, a kitchen, and a sort of war room. The locals living here had no idea it even existed until 1991!

After emerging from the tunnel I headed up to the giant castle. This place took most of the day to explore. In addition to just being huge, there are three interesting museums up there too.

One of the museums was a history of the city. A second was the prison, which was built just after WWI on the very top of the castle. Gjirokaster had a turbulent history in the 20th century. They were occupied by Ottomans, Greeks, Italians, Nazis, and later the communist regime of course. The prison got used a lot.

They also had a military museum. Lots of guns and artillery pieces, but also one of the three remaining Fiat tanks in the world, and a USA plane with two interesting stories as to how it got here. The American version is that the plane was flying from France to Italy and got blown off course. The Albanian version is that they intercepted a spy plane in their airspace and forced it to land. I gotta say, the Albanian version seems much more plausible. Anyway, now it sits in Gjirokaster Castle.

Visitors to Gjirokaster over the centuries all said it seemed that this city of stone houses seemed to just rise up from the hillside. Part of the reason is these really interesting stone roofs. Most of the buildings here have them. It’s said each roof weighs 500-600lbs (which seems low to me) and when it rains, someone has to get on the roof to reposition the stones to cover all the leaks. Ha! Seems like a lot of work.

After the castle I wandered around the bazaar and around the town to see some of the interesting houses. This was a quick stop and I have a super long drive tomorrow, so that’s it for this edition. Despite the long drive, the next stop is a quick one too.