Berat, City of Windows: Albania Part 4

A UNESCO World Heritage City and its Unique Icons

Gjirokastër to Berat

Albania

A little after 10 o’clock, after saying goodbye to Gjirokastër and our local guide, Edi drove us out of town along the Drino Valley.

Down the Drino Valley from Gjirokaster

We were headed for Berat, which the map shows as almost due north, but inland Albania is a land of hills and mountains and main roads follow the wide river valleys.

You would not think that the quickest route from Gjirokastër to Berat goes via Fier, almost on the coast.

We drove northwest through a few small towns and villages…

North from Gjirokaster

…and a lot of countryside….

The hills became lower as we approached the coast

Fier

…before reaching the coast at Fier.

Arriving in Fier

Flames from escaping natural gas and the presence of oil, asphalt and bitumen were recorded near Fier in the 1st century CE. Oil and bitumen are still important to this industrial city of some 60,000 people, as are chemicals. It will also be a hub on the soon to be completed Trans Adriatic Pipeline which will link to the South Caucasus Pipeline and bring natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Albania and Italy without crossing Russia. Two cheers for this; diversifying Europe’s energy supply is important – though stopping the use of fossil fuels completely maybe even more important.

Time to turn right in Fier, even if Berat is not on the signpost.

We turned east here towards Berat. The road signs are to Tiranë and Lushnje, while the map above has Tirana and Lushnja. Albanian nouns have a definite and indefinite form (very roughly like having a definite or indefinite article appended at the end). Tirana and Lushnja are definite, but Albanian grammar insists that the unwritten ‘to’ on every road sign must be followed by the indefinite. Maps produced in Albania use the indefinite form, maps produced elsewhere usually use the definite form, but inconsistently. Confused? Me too.

Lunch in Berat

Berat

Like Gjirokastër, Berat consists of an old town (another UNESCO World Heritage site) below a castle on a hill, with the modern town (pop 35,000) sitting in the valley below.

We reached Berat at 2 o’clock, lunchtime had come and gone and we were peckish. Edi, again sure about where we should eat, parked in a road heading up the hill and ushered us into a large old and not particularly inviting hotel. We were not very upset to discover they were catering for a function and had no space for us. He marched us 100m up the hill to a similar but entirely empty establishment; we rejected that.

There was a small, downmarket, pub/café opposite where we had parked, so we said we would go there. Edi looked askance; it was not a place for rich foreigners. We insisted, he shrugged with an ‘on your own heads be it’ look and told us where and when to meet afterwards.

It was basic but friendly enough and very soon we were equipped with beer and a menu. Chicken fillets – a breast each bashed flat, bread-crumbed and grilled – and a bowl of fergesë – tomato and peppers roasted to a pulp with fermented cheese – provided a cheap, wholesome and tasty lunch.

Lunch in Berat - this restaurant looks empty, too, but there were several occupied tables to Lynne's left

Pasha's Gate

We had ten minutes before our rendezvous with Edi and a local guide, so we could not go far, but we had a look at the nearby Pasha’s Gate. It is an elegant 18th century construction…

Pasha's Gate, Berat

…and so, probably, was the Pasha’s house behind, but that was bombed in World War 2 and the communist regime was not interested in restoring the residences of Ottoman rulers kicked out before World War 1. They built a rather ugly middle school in what might have been the Pasha’s garden, but did nothing else with the site, and little has been done since.

Pasha's House, Berat

Berat ‘Castle’

If the castle at Gjirokastër is better described as a citadel, that applies doubly to Berat. The hilltop was settled in the Bronze Age and the earliest traces of building date from the late 4th century BCE. Berat was then the home of an Illyrian tribe called the Dasseretes, in time it came under Macedonian control and then, around 200 BCE, the Romans arrived.

Berat was part of the Roman and then the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire. The Byzantine Empire started to decay in the 13th century, fading away gradually until the Ottomans finally took Constantinople in 1453. The trading routes from the south through the mountain valleys enter Albania’s northern plain at Berat so whoever controlled Berat controlled the trading networks. The citadel was besieged, taken and re-taken several times during the difficult period between the end of Byzantine control and absorption into the Ottoman Empire, but it does not resemble a medieval castle; there are no imposing gatehouses, no towers and nothing that might be identified as a keep, though some defensive walls and arches survive.

Inside the Berat citadel

Low walls follow the contours of the hill enclosing a large triangular area with a network of cobbled street many of them looking surprisingly residential. Like the fort of Jaisalmer in India, Berat citadel is still inhabited.

Inside Berat citadel

There were also 42 churches within the citadel of which 8 remain, along with a couple of later mosques.Seven of the surviving churches open only on their name day, but the eighth, the Church of the Dormition of St Mary houses the Onufri National Iconographic Museum.

Onufri National Iconographic Museum

Onufri (pronounced on-OFF-ree) was a major 16th century icon painter. He was born either in Berat or Kastoria, Northern Greece, and spent much of his working life in Berat where he founded a school of painting.

The museum’s no photography policy was enforced, so I have borrowed a picture of the church iconostasis from traveladventures.org. Part of the museum was church-like, part laid out as a standard art gallery. Much of the work was by Onufri, but there are also icons by his son Nikolla who inherited his school of painting, his successor Onouphrios Cypriotes and others.

Iconostasis, Church of the Dormition of St Mary

Our Eastern Europe travels have introduced us to many icons and icon painters, but neither of us know much about the subject. I read, and pass on in good faith and without comment (at least on the art) that Onufri broke with the strict conventions of the time by introduced greater realism and individuality into facial expressions. He developed his own colour, the first pink to be used in icon painting, and kept the production method to himself. I can imagine a professional painter jealously guarding his USP, but taking the secret to his grave smacks of selfishness.

Mary and Child by Onufri, National Iconographic Museum, Berat
The icon uses his unique pink, and the Child is held in Mary's right arm rather than left
(and this was, apparently, revolutionary!)
Borrowed from Wikipedia and believed to be in the Public Domain

Painting Christian icons even in the relatively tolerant Muslim Ottoman Empire was political as well as religious; a symbolic restoration of pre-Ottoman culture.

Berat and Mount Tomorr

There is little apparent evidence that the citadel was once well fortified, but it is clearly a very defendable position with commanding views over the approach. Below, the modern city sits on the right bank of the wide but shallow River Osum, overlooked by Mount Tomorr (2,417m) some 18 km distant. The large, domed white building middle right on the edge of the urban area was the Albanian University of Berat. An independent venture, it opened in 2009 and closed a few years later. It is allegedly being converted into a hotel.

Modern Berat, the River Osum and Mount Tomorr

Mangalam and Gorica

The castle and the old districts of Mangalam and Gorica together make up the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mangalam, where we had lunch is tucked into the hillside below the castle, some roofs and the minaret of a small mosque can be seen right at the bottom of the photograph above. Gorica on the opposite back of the Osum is just beyond the bottom right corner, though unlike Mangalam it can be seen after a slight shift of position.

The Gorica district of Berat

Driving down to the river we walked onto the footbridge across the Osum. In front of us was the church of St Thomas at the eastern corner of Gorica…

Church of St Thomas, Gorica, Berat

…while behind us was Mangalam. Gjirokastër is called the City of Stone, Berat is the City of Windows and this angle explains why.

Mangalam, Berat

Sultan’s Mosque, Berat

The King Mosque or Sultan’s mosque was built in the 15th century by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II as a gift to the Albanian people. The mosque is currently undergoing extensive repair and redecoration.

The Sultan's Mosque, Berat

Albanians were largely Christian under the Byzantine Empire. The Islamic Ottomans arrived in the 14th century and controlled most of Albania by 1431. As rulers they were relatively tolerant, there were no forced conversions and Christian worship was permitted, but Christians had to pay higher taxes, and lucrative positions in the Ottoman administration were closed to them. Albanians started to convert to Islam, many driven more by pragmatism than conviction. The Bektashi order a sub-group of the mystic Sufi branch of Shi-ism was popular among Ottoman intellectuals and became the majority sect in Albania.

The Sultan's Mosque, Berat

After the end of communism and state sponsored atheism, there has, perhaps surprisingly, been little sign of a religious revival. Today 58% of Albanians self-identify as Muslims, 17% as Christians, though the majority of these say their faith is not particularly important to them.

The Sultan's Mosque, Berat

On to Tirana

Around 5 o’clock we set off on the 100km journey north to Tirana. Leaving the mountains behind, we travelled through more gently rolling countryside.

Beside the road to Tirana

Some of the agricultural practices have not been seen in western Europe for decades, particularly the conical stacking of hay round a central spar.

Stooks of straw on the road to Tirana

Dinner in Tirana

Edi deposited us at a solid, four-square business hotel in a business district of Tirana. We saw no eating opportunities nearby but Google suggested an Italian restaurant a short walk down the road and across a small park. Had we realised we were very near Blloku, once a restricted residential area for members of the Politburo, now Tirana’s entertainment and restaurant district, we might have made a different decision.

No matter, we found a large, busy Italian restaurant exactly where Google had promised and they furnished Lynne with a pizza, me with a very satisfactory veal pappardelle and both of us with a decent enough Italian red, coffee and a glass of raki at a modest cost.

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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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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