retiredmartin

May 2024. Gjirokastër. Albania.

These blog posts don’t get half the views that a post on a Marston boozer in Wrexham gets. In fact, this post on a CLOSED pub in North Wales from 2017 is still getting more attention than anything I write on Albania.

But it’s a diary not a beer blog, and frankly there’s so little about Albania on the web (Mrs RM’s posts due 2027) I feel obliged to do Gjirokaster justice, just as Duncan did in 2022.

A gem at the southern tip of a country I enjoyed immensely. 20 years ago we had a family holiday barely 20 miles south on Corfu when Albania felt a world apart, now it felt as obvious a tourist destination as anywhere in the Balkans.

Over a sticky but sumptuous breakfast of doughnuts and spinach tart in the Old Town Hotel, with castle behind,

and sprawling Ottoman residences in the hill.

Mrs RM had managed to book a seat on the 3pm bus back to Tirana, giving us 4 clear hours for “culture”, far too much for my liking. An Ottoman home, the castle, a museum, a big lunch.

Not hard to walk to Zekate House,

I assured a dubious Mrs RM, flashing her a look at Google Maps.

As in all things, not hard for a flying crow. Those blue circles indicate a proper road which turned out to be this.

Makes the Snake Pass look like the M1. At that bend, we find Grandma’s 9.8 Home, the 9.8 Booking,Com score inscribed permanently on that sign, even though it’s now 9.1 after terrified German tourists scored it down on accessibility.

19th century Zekate house will appeal to folk who like National Trust properties;

I admired the view over another exemplar espresso.

Back in town we admired the 3 point turns of those German tourists at the barriered entry to the Old Town. Some of those Germans had left their calling cards on the lamp post.

In the bazaar you can buy carpets, woodcraft, fridge magnets, and World War II gas masks.

But the real military collections are up the hill (past the only tat hawkers we saw) at the castle,

where the highlight is the last iteration of a prison bearing poetry both original and modern,

and a view to drive you insane.

We had a long, leisurely lunch at the foot of the hill at Tavernia Laberia, 10 minutes from our bus stop,

an inspired decision as the heavens opened just as we arrived and we saw at a downpour over lamb, Tazatziki and roasted vegetables. Oh and Korça in frosted glass.

We were delighted; one chap looked less impressed;