Gjirokastër, City of Stone: Albania Part 3

An Ottoman Town Below a Forbidding Medieval Castle

Albania

08-Jun-2019

On to Gjirokastër

Leaving the Blue Eye for Gjirokastër, Edi first drove us east…

Edi drives us east from the Blue Eye

…on a well-made road as the countryside became ever more hilly…

Inland Abania is distinctly hilly

….and then turned north along the flat-bottomed valley of the River Drino towards Gjirokastër.

The flat bottomed valley of the Drino - probably best not viewed through a crash barrier, but you have to take what you can get

Gjirokastër: A Little History

The earliest written record of Gjirokastër dates from 1336, but by then the city had already grown on the lower slopes of the hillside below a fortress that commanded the Drino Valley. At the break-up of the Byzantine Empire this was the disputed frontier between the Greek Despotate of Epirus and Albanian tribal lands. The Ottomans arrived in 1417 and stayed until 1913 and the document granting the Old City UNESCO World Heritage status described Gjirokastër as "a rare example of a well-preserved Ottoman town, built by farmers of large estates."

The fortress of Gjirokastër above the Old City

Southern Albania has a large Greek population and when the independent Principality of Albania was established in 1913 a revolt in the south briefly made Gjirokastër capital of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus. World War I soon trumped Albania’s internal problems and when the dust settled the 1913 borders were confirmed.

We have now reached Gjirokastra (or Gjirokastër), still in southern Albania but some way inland

A Lunch of Byrek and Fërgese

Edi stopped in the main square of the old town, pointed us at his recommended restaurant and suggested a time to meet afterwards.

On a terrace beside the square and overlooking the hillside, we ordered byrek and fërgese, two typical Albanian dishes which together made a light lunch for two. Although etymologically related to Bosnian burek - a coiled tube of filo pastry baked round tiny meatballs (see Mostar) - byrek, filo pastry stuffed with fermented cheese and spinach, is closer to Moldovan/Romanian plăcintă. Fergesë is a dish of peppers, skinned tomatoes and onions baked with fermented cheese and olive oil to a delicious mush. Both were excellent.

The Old Bazaar Hotel, Gjirokastër

Feeling pleased with our choices we re-joined Edi, and sympathised as he moaned about how far the one-way system had made him drive to deliver our cases to a hotel only 100m away. We walked to The Old Bazaar Hotel, a delightful 18th century Ottoman building with many levels to accommodate the steep hillside.

Hotel Old Bazaar, Gjirokastër

After a warm welcome we were led through an interior of wooden panelling and heavy furniture and down a narrow wooden spiral staircase.

A wooden door at the bottom of a tight wooden spiral staircase. So this is room 101!

Our room was large and characterful. The street-level windows were barred for security while those across the room were some height above the ground. We saw no fire notice, and doubted the hotel in general, and our room in particular, would conform to western European fire standards, on the other hand the hotel had stood for over 200 years, so the chances of it burning down on the one night we were there seem reassuringly remote.

Large, comfortable, characterful and just possibly a death trap

The Ethnographic Museum and the Skenduli House

A couple of Gjirokastër’s major sights were a short walk away along Ismail Kadare Street.

The view from Ismail Kadare street, Gjirokastër

Kadare, a novelist and poet, is one of Gjirokastër’s favourite sons. Chronicles of Stone, published in 1971 and telling the story of a child in Gjirokastër during the chaos of World War II, is considered his and possibly Albania’s greatest novel. Despite many of his works being criticised and some banned, he managed to stay just on the right side of the regime almost to the end, only seeking political asylum in France in 1990 as Ramiz Alia attempted to follow in the footsteps of his mentor Enver Hoxha who had ruled Albania with a rod of iron from 1944-85. Now 83, Kadare divides his time between France and Albania.

Rruga Ismail Kadare has many traditional houses…

Traditional House, Gjirokastër

…including the childhood home of Enver Hoxha, because he too was a son of Gjirokastër. The house burned down in 1966 and the reconstruction, intended as a model of a traditional Gjirokastër house, is a pastiche of features borrowed from around the city. It served as the Anti-Fascist Museum until 1991 and now houses the city’s Ethnographic Museum.

The rooms are typical of a wealthy 19th century Gjirokastër family of merchants or Ottoman administrators…

Ethnographic Museum, Gjirokastër

…and are decorated with household items,…

Ethnographic Museum, Gjirokastër

….folk costumes and cultural artefacts.

Ethnographic Museum, Gjirokaster

Enver Hoxha is not entirely ignored, though few Albanians remember him fondly. The son of a well-to-do cloth merchant, he was born here in 1908 when Albania was still part of the Ottoman Empire.

A young Enver Hoxha in his old home (sort of), Gjirokastër

Just up the road is the early 18th century Skenduli House.

The Skenduli House, Gjirokastër

Apart from a brief period when it was requisitioned by the communist government the house has been owned by the Skenduli family for generations, and still is.

The Skendulis joke that they were richer than the Hoxhas as they had 9 fireplaces – apparently a local guide to wealth – while the Hoxhas had one. The Hoxha house that was rebuilt after the fire in 1966 is far grander than the original.

One of the Skendulis fireplaces, Gjirokastër

The interiors are not that dissimilar, but here we had an engaging guide, possibly a member of the family - I wish I had asked. The wedding room with its stained-glass windows was spectacular (but no photos permitted). We were also shown the bomb shelter in the basement and the kitchen, with the very first electrical appliances available in Albania, though far out of reach to most ordinary Albanians.

The Skenduli kitchen, Gjirokastër

I particularly liked the raised plinth beside the open balcony, where the elderly gentlemen of the family would sit in a summer evening and be brought their coffee and raki. ‘Raki?’I asked. ‘Were they not Muslims?’ ‘They were Muslims,’ I was told, ‘but they were also Albanians, and Albanians drink raki.’

Plinth for the mature raki drinker, Gjirokastër

We walked back down to the bazaar area and had a coffee – Albania claims to have more coffee houses per head than any other country in the world. Then we did some shopping, because gifts and souvenirs do not buy themselves. The bazaar might have looked better if the cobbles had not been in the process of replacement, and maybe Edi would have had an easier drive earlier.

Part of the Gjirokastër bazaar under renovation

Dinner in Gjirokastër

We dined at the oddly named Check-In Restaurant. We had spotted it on a terrace as we walked up the hill to our hotel, but the Gjirokastër topography allowed us to walk in on the flat when descending the hill.

Being no longer on the coast, grilled meat dominated the menu. We went for a mixed sharing platter (served on a slate – even here you cannot be sure your food arrives on proper china). The huge pile of chargrilled lamb, pork, chicken, assorted sausages and anything else they could bung on the barbey was a carnivores’ delight; not art and best hidden from vegetarian eyes but very satisfying. A ‘village salad’ – lob in everything available and sparge with good olive oil – was the perfect accompaniment.

Grilled meats at the Check-In Restaurant, Gjirokastër

As on the coast, anonymous Italian wine by the carafe was cheap, but it was time to investigate the local product. The cheapest Albanian wine we saw in shops was £5 or £6 a bottle - expensive for the average citizen. We were offered a bottle of Kallmet, a local grape and new to me, from the Arbëri winery in northern Albani for 2000 Lekë (about £15, cheap for a restaurant wine at home, but steep by local standards). Kallmet is a major variety in Albania with a spicy/sweet perfumed nose (or so they claim). I thought it elegant, a touch smoky with deep red fruits. On the palate it was short and rather thin at first, but with plenty of tannin it coped well with the meats and revealed subtle pleasures as the bottle (or rather decanter) went down.

Arberi Kallmet

We finished with a glass of raki – well, this is Albania.

09-Jun-2019

Breakfast in the Old Bazaar, Gjirokastër

We breakfasted on a wooden balcony, or was it a patio - in a building on a slope the difference is not always obvious. Sausages and egg with tomato, cucumber and high-quality bread, a basket of tiny pancakes and a pot of local honey (memorably delicious), fruit juice, tea and ‘mountain tea’ made from locally gathered greenery made an excellent start to the day.

Gjirokastër Fort

Edi arrived with a local guide and drove us up to the fort. The rambling stone edifice that crowns the hill above the city has existed in some form or another since the 11th century. It is more a citadel than a castle in the Western European sense and the area inside the walls has been renovated and extended many times and used for various purposes. The prison was extended under King Zog who ruled from 1922 to 1939, first as Prime Minister, then as President and from 1928-39 as Albania’s first and only King. The communist tyrant Enver Hoxha (ruled 1944-85) made full use of the prison for his real and imagined political enemies. The old walls look forbidding…

Inside Gjirokastër Fortress

…but their main use now is as a museum of sorts. We passed down an avenue of guns captured by partisans in World War II, German on one side, Italian on the other.

Avenue of Guns, Gjirokastër Fortress

At the end was a ‘little tank’, looking much more sinister than Lieutenant Gruber’s in ‘Allo! ‘Allo!...

'Little Tank', Gjirokastër Fortress

…and a ‘socialist realism’ statue resembling no soldier who has ever lived.

Unreal realism, Gjirokastër Fortress

Beyond the gloomy corridor was a patch of grass. We were advised to keep off it by a sign displaying a little humour.

Keep off the grass, Gjirokastër Fort

The cannons in question belonged to Ali Pasha and were British made. Ali Pasha, born 1740 was an Albanian bandit turned Ottoman apparatchik who established and ruled the semi-autonomous state of Western Rumelia (the western half of the Balkan Peninsula) from 1788 until 1822 when he upset the Ottoman sultan enough to get himself killed. After Lord Byron's visit to this efficient but ruthless and cruel ruler he became the personification of an "oriental despot" in western literature. British arms trading has remained a morality free zone to this day.

One of Ali Pasha's British Cannons, Gjirokastër Fort

They also have the remains of an American spy plane shot down in the 1950s when it accidently (according to the Americans) strayed into Albanian airspace.

The remains of an american spy plane, Gjirokastër Fort

But something seems to have happened to the plane. Atlasobscura has a rather different picture; I am not sure when it was taken but it cannot be many years ago.

The plane as it used to be - photo Marc Morell (reproduced under creative commons licence)

From here there are fine views down over the old town and its stone roofs – Gjirokastër is known as the city of stone - …

Gjirokastër Old Town

….and over the new town spreading out across the flat valley of the Drino - more concrete than stone here.

Gjirokastër New Town

The end of the castle sits on a spur. The Gjirokastër Folklore Festival has been held here every five years since 1968 and showcases Albanian traditional music, dress and dance from Albania, Albanian inhabited lands in the Balkans and Southern Italy and the wider Albanian diaspora.

Stage for the Gjirokastër Folklore Festival

At the very end of the spur is a clock tower erected in the early 1800s by Ali Pasha when he expanded the castle.

Ali Pasha's clocktower, Gjirokastër

The Gjirokastër Obelisk

From the castle we made our way down to the obelisk that is central in the view (above) of the Old Town from the American spy plane. It looks a long way down, but it is still high enough to give a good view of the stone roofs of the Varosh district of the Old Town.

The roofs of Old Gjirokastër

The obelisk is a recent construction, though the area around it looks somewhat neglected. It is a monument to Albanian education in the 20th century and stands near the site of the first Albanian school in Gjirokastër which was opened in 1908. Under the Ottoman Empire there had previously been no education in Albanian and opening the school was an act of defiance.

The Gjirokastër Obelisk

It was time to say goodbye to our local guide and for Edi to drive us on towards Berat and the next post.

Albania

Part 1: Ksamil on the Albanian Riviera

Part 2: Butrint and the Blue Eye
Part 3: Gjirokastër
Part 4: Berat
Part 5: Tirana
Part 6: Tirana to Saranda

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Corfu City

Butrint and the Blue Eye: Albania Part 2

A Graeco-Roman City and an 'Infinitely' Deep Blue Spring

Albania

Edi, our driver for the rest of this trip arrived punctually at 9.

Butrint

The end of the main peninsula was only a few minutes away. Butrint, the remains of the Graeco-Roman city of Bouthroton/Buthrotum, a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site, perches on a secondary peninsula pointing inland and forming the eastern end of the Vivari Channel linking Lake Butrint to the sea.

Butrint is in Albania's extreme south west corner. We had spent the previous two nights in Ksamil, south of Saranda and closer to Butrint than we had realised

When we said we were going to Albania, more than one person recalled holidaying in Corfu as a child, and seeing an adult finger pointing across the straits to the green hills beyond while its owner said:‘That’s Albania, no one goes there.’ Times have changed, Butrint is now a popular destination on day trips from Corfu, though few venture across the water for longer. Arriving early from Ksamil meant we almost had the place to ourselves.

Greek Butrint - Bouthroton

The oldest archaeological evidence of a settlement dates to between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE and that settlement became the city of Bouthroton with the construction of the acropolis in the 7th century. At first an independent city linked with the Corinthian colony of Corfu, it became subject to Corfu after the second Peloponnesian War (413-404 BCE). Bouthroton’s access to the Straits of Corfu, and location on the boundary between mainland Greece and the barbarian world beyond gave it strategic importance. The city grew and by the 4th century BCE had an agora, a theatre and a sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine.

Butrint site map, the work of Lencer from an original by Neritan Ceka, borrowed from Wikipedia

The site map above, by far the best I have found, is in German but even the most monolingual anglophone should not find it difficult to follow. We arrived on the (purple) road (left of map) which leads to a parking area. After picking up a knowledgeable young guide, we entered (at the eingang!) and made our way up to the agora and theatre.

Approaching the temple of Asclepius and the theatre, Butrint

This is a seismically active area and over the centuries the land and the water table have shifted up and down. It is now necessary to cross a small lake to reach the Temple of Asclepius…

Over the lake to the Temple of Asclepius, Butrint

…with the opportunity to view the resident turtles. These may be European pond turtles, striped necked terrapins (aka Caspian turtles), both or neither.

Part of Butrint's turtle community

Every Greek city needed a theatre, and Burtrint’s looks small, though there is evidence that the seating went further up the hill behind.

Greek theatre, Butrint

It is easy to be appalled by 18th and 19th century slavery (and by modern slavery, too) but it is almost impossible to comprehend the mind-set involved in classical slavery. Inscriptions on the wall at the entrance to the theatre (though it may have been a wall in the agora at the time) mainly deal with the freeing of slaves. Freed slaves merged into the regular citizenry and some become slave owners themselves.

Inscriptions on the theatre wall, Butrint

Leaving the temple for the baths, we could to see the theatre seating probably continuing into the woods above – and a school party using the theatre as it was designed.

Greek theatre, Butrint

Roman Butrint -Buthrotum

As Greek power waned, that of Rome waxed and 228 BCE Butrint and Corfu became Roman protectorates. A century later Butrint became part of the Province of Macedonia and in 44 BCE a Roman colony.

Romans needed baths like Greeks needed theatres, so they built one, the underfloor design being instantly recognisable from one end of the empire to the other. The water in the bottom is not bathwater!

Roman baths, Butrint

Opposite are the remains of the Temple of Minerva.

Temple of Minerva, Butrint

Continuing past on-going archaeology …

Continuing archaeology, Butrint

…we reached the gymnasium. Although sounding as though it should be Greek, the gymnasium lies on the line of the second of the city’s three walls built to protect an ever larger area as the population grew. The nymphaeum is the only recognisable survivor and is certainly a Romanesque structure. The remains of mosaics can be seen in the tops of the niches, but even by standing directly beneath them, risking a backward step into the water, I could not make them out.

The gymnasium's nymphaeum, Roman Butrint

In the 3rd century CE a major earthquake levelled much of outer Buthrotum…

…and in the 5th century political earthquakes destroyed the Roman Empire. Power passed to Byzantium.

Byzantine Butrint

Christianity arrived with the Byzantine Empire and the circular baptistry was built in the 6th century on part of a Roman bathhouse. The star shaped font in the centre is surrounded by two concentric circles of eight Egyptian granite pillars, once supports for a wooden roof.

Byzantine baptistry, Butrint

On the floor is one of the finest mosaics of the Byzantine world. Unfortunately, as the on-site display board explains at length, it is permanently covered to protect it from the seasonal rise and fall of water levels. Once every couple of years the cover is removed for conservation purposes, but not today, so we had to make do with the picture on the display board.

The baptistry mosaic, display board, Butrint

The Basilica was also built in the 6th century when Butrint became the seat of a bishopric, though it was rebuilt in 1267 by Charles I, King of Naples.

Butrint Basilica

It had three aisles…

Aisles, Butrint basilica

…and a mosaic floor, part of which can still be seen.

Mosaics on the basilica floor, Butrint

Despots, Angevins and Doges

In the 7th century Slavic tribes started to move into the Balkans. Butrint survived but it is unclear whether the city was under Byzantine or Slavic control from the 7th to the 10th century.

Although Constantinople did not fall to the Ottomans until 1453, the Byzantine Empire started fragmenting after the 4th Crusade (1202-1204). Butrint became part of the wonderfully named Despotate of Epirus - one of the fragments - that ruled Eastern Greece until the Ottomans arrived in 1474.

In 1272 Charles of Anjou took Corfu and Butrint and in 1277 added King of Albania to his many other titles. The Angevins ruled in Butrint (with occasional interruptions from the Despotate) until 1386 when Corfu and Butrint were sold to the Doge of Venice.

The Venetians were only interested in Corfu, and Butrint went into decline. The city was sacked in 1572 in the war between the Venetians and Ottomans and never recovered.

Fascists and Communists in Butrint

East of the basilica the path slipped through one of the gaps in the outer wall and continued along the edge of the Vivari Channel.

Looking up the Vivari Channel into Lake Burtrint

An independent Principality of Albania was established followed the defeat of the Ottomans in the 1913 Balkan War and the Great Powers decided that German princeling Wilhelm of Wied should be the new head of state. He lasted six months; Albania was on the road to chaos even before the start of World War I.

Stability returned in 1925 with the creation of the First Republic of Albania as an Italian protectorate. In 1928 President Zogu became King Zog I; the new Kingdom nominally independent but with Italy still holding the reins. (for more about King Zog, see the Tirana post.)

In 1928 Mussolini sent an archaeological expedition to Butrint headed by Luigi Maria Ugolini, a political appointment but also a competent professional archaeologist. He excavated the Greek and Roman cities and found two gates in the outer wall.

The 'Scaean' Gate, Butrint

Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid (published 19 BCE) concerns Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled westwards. Virgil tells of his visit to Butrint, founded, allegedly, by Helenus, son of King Priam of Troy and Andromache, the widow of Hector. Here Aeneas learns that his destiny is to endure much and eventually reach Italy and found the city of Rome.

Virgil was writing patriotic mythology but fascism needs to believe its own mythology – and not just because it gave Italy a tenuous claim over Albania. To please Mussolini, Ugolini dubbed his freshly discovered gate the ‘Scaean Gate’ after the main gate of Troy. The Italian post office re-imagined the meeting of Helenus and Aeneas at the ‘Scaean Gate’ with both men raising their arms in a fascist salute.

Aeneas greets Helenus at Butrint. Fascists would be funny if they weren't so nasty

After passing the Lion Gate we ascended to the acropolis.

The Lion Gate, Butrint

When the communist government of Enver Hoxha took over after World War II, foreign archaeologists were no longer welcome, but excavations continued, directed by local academic Hasan Ceka. There would be few visitors to Butrint during the next 45 years, foreign tourists stayed away, and Albanians from outside the region needed special security passes to travel this close to the Greek border.

There is a story that when Mr Khrushchev visited in 1959, the leader of the Soviet Union studied the view from the acropolis and told Enver Hoxha to forget ancient ruins, Butrint would make a perfect submarine base.

View from the Acropolis, Butrint. It looks too shallow for submarines (occasionally I feel moved to give my opinion on a subject of which my ignorance is absolute)

It is also said that before Khrushchev’s visit the heavily wooded site was swept for poisonous snakes. Later Albanian officials watched in horror as a snake emerge from the undergrowth, slithered over to the Soviet leader and buried its fangs in his ankle. Sadly, the snake died.

The local guide told the first of those stories as fact, I do not know the source and maybe it is true but I have my doubts. A year later Albania fell out with the USSR and allied itself with the Chinese in the great communist schism, so a story showing Khrushchev in a bad light was convenient. In 1976 Chairman Mao died, Albania fell out with China and for the next 12 years was as isolated as North Korea.

A Venetian castle has sat atop the acropolis for some centuries and the basement contains a display of local finds. Fortunately, Lynne carries a torch in her bag so we could continue our perusal even after the electricity failed.

Venetian fort, Acropolis, Butrint

Outside is a carved head that Ugolini presented to Mussolini. It was thought to be the head of a woman, but the misleading haircut was apparently popular with men at some time in antiquity, and it is now believed to be Apollo. Fascism and communism having both slipped into the past (and may they stay there) the bust has returned to its rightful place.

Apollo, Butrint

The Blue Eye

We left Butrint and made our way back through Ksamil and Saranda before turning east into hilly terrain.

Travelling inland from Saranda

After almost an hour Edi swung off the road onto a well-made but unmetalled track leading into a forest of oak and sycamore, round and above a lake, to a car park. ‘Blue eye,’ he said pointing at a footpath into the trees.

The path took us beside and then over a stream of astounding clarity, rushing with surprising speed through the wooded valley.

The water from the Blue Eye rushing through the wooded valley

The path twisted and turned and we shortly came back to the stream, perhaps after the confluence with another stream as two bodies of water appeared to flow side by side or was it just an optical illusion cused by disparities in depth.

Possibly two steams flowing side by side, or possibly an optical illusion

Metallic blue damselflies flew in large numbers about the paths and clearings, and in and out of the stream side vegetation, occasionally stopping to pose for a photograph. These were, probably, beautiful demoiselles – by which I mean Calopteryx virgo not my description (though beautiful they were). The mature male of the Balkan version of the subspecies Calopteryx virgo festiva has no white patches on his wings, so that is what I think I have captured.

A beautiful demoiselle (I think) Calopteryz virgo festiva at the Blue Eye

We soon reached the start of the stream – a somewhat unusual statement. There was clearly a substantial spring here and, as can be seen in the photo below, a platform to view it from.

The Blue Eye from the end of the stream

From the platform we peered into the depths of the Blue Eye, (Syri i Kaltër – Eye of Blue in Albanian). The water wells up a from deep inside the earth, the eye’s iris as blue as the damselflies flitting round the pond. It is reputedly over 50m deep, though the precise depth is unknown.

Internet pictures show people diving into the eye from above the platform – foolish I would have thought, much of the surrounding water is dangerously shallow, and uncomfortable, too, as the water emerges at 10ºC.

The Blue Eye

Wikipedia informs me that the discharge rate is 18,400 l/s and “in summer 2004 the source temporarily dried up”. If it can dry up, then the discharge rate must vary, presumably seasonally and with stronger variations during extreme weather. So, what does 18,400 l/s mean? Is it the maximum discharge? The average, and if so at some particular time of year? Is it merely the last measurement of some unspecified individual? Was the number plucked from the air? As a grumpy old mathematician, it really annoys me when people quote numbers that have not properly understood (and lacked the wit to realise their failure). And why bother with it anyway, who can visualise what 18,400 l/s looks like?

I do not wish to finish with a rant – particularly as it is about Wikipedia, not the Blue Eye or anything Albanian. We had enjoyed a fine morning and continued our journey to Gjirokastër in good spirits.

Albania

Part 1: Ksamil on the Albanian Riviera

Part 2: Butrint and the Blue Eye
Part 3: Gjirokastër
Part 4: Berat
Part 5: Tirana
Part 6: Tirana to Saranda
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Corfu: A Fleeting Visit