Berat is called a town of a thousand windows and I assume I don’t have to explain why.
Today I was grouped by an old man who couldn’t speak a lick of english and apparently just wanted to shake my hand. Then on top of the castle was given yet another free tour by an old Albanian man who wanted to improve his english. Not long after at a “panorama” (this is what they call a lookout point in Europe by the way) a 90+ year old woman handed me a booklet which turned out to be a booklet that attempted to convert me to a Jehovah witness in more than 50 different languages.
After watching the sun set from the castle I took a stroll down the main boulevard of Berat which was really really strange. In the evening the main road turns into a huge meeting place for the locals where they all dress up and take a stroll and simply socialise en mass. So during the day the road is just a bust road, but in the evening it fills with hundreds of shuffling people just chatting, drinking coffee, smoking and eating pop corn.
Back at he hostel I got talking to another Melbournite and discovered how crazily, extremely, ridiculously close I came to fulfilling my Albanian dream of touring an Albanian plantation when in Girokaster. At least I know where to go when I return to Albania.
