After a bit of a sleep in and some confusion over the time difference Lina and I went out to explore Gjirokastër. We had our breakfast at the hotel then headed up towards the old town and the castle on foot. On the way we made a few small detours into parts of the old town and through an old half-lit tunnel that runs directly under the castle. This place really is like stepping back in time.
We entered the Castle and were both pretty impressed. It seems like they hadn’t really done any restoration work to the castle before opening it to the public which gave it a very authentic feel and allowed you to just climb and explore wherever you felt like it. There are unlit rooms and dungeons everywhere, old military tanks laying about and even a captured american spy plane!
The view from the top of the Castle is amazing too! There is an old stage from the 2009 Folk Festival which is held in Gjirokastër once every 5 years. The backdrop of the mountains and the crumbling castle would make it a pretty awesome place to hold a music festival so next year Lina is planning to make the trip back to see it.
After finding some Coffee we went to the upper part of the old town and found an old ottoman house/museum which was pretty fascinating and sad at the same time. We ratted around the shops in the old town for a bit, Lina bought some trinkets while I bought a bottle of Albanian brandy. Afterwards we found a nice cafe-bar overlooking the city to watch the sun slowly set and creep up the mountain of the opposite side.
We hunted out a traditional Albanian feast for dinner and then spent the evening trying to find a bar with people our age, or somewhere to play pool. After a while Lina asked a lovely woman on the street something in Greek and she lead us to a nice bar where I beat Lina at Backgammon (she also beat me in the next game) and we drank some pretty rich and thick hot chocolates before calling it a night.
It was an amazing first day in Albania. It is definitely different to anywhere I have been in Europe so far and most of the people are extremely friendly and helpful. We had only seen about 5 other tourists around and its easy to tell that the country is very new to the whole tourist thing.
