Gjirokastër Castle

The steps in front of you lead up to the unmissable Gjirokastër Castle, one of the most impressive fortresses in the Balkans. Perched 336 metres above sea level, it crowns the hill and looks out over the entire Drino Valley. Nearly 600 metres long, it stretches above the city like a vast stone ship, dominating every neighbourhood below. The site has been occupied since Late Antiquity, but the first clearly identifiable fortifications date back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a time of regional instability and Byzantine power struggles. The earliest written reference appears in 1336, when a Byzantine chronicler mentions an Albanian revolt in a place called Argyrokastron, the former name of Gjirokastër. Over the centuries, the castle passed through many hands, from the Despotate of Epirus to the Ottomans, who conquered it in 1419 and turned it into a major military and administrative centre of southern Albania. Much of the imposing silhouette you see today is the work of Ali Pasha of Tepelenë, a powerful Ottoman ruler who, between 1811 and 1812, radically reshaped the fortress by enlarging it, reinforcing its walls and building towers rising up to thirty metres high. He also equipped the castle with an ambitious aqueduct more than ten kilometres long to bring in water, a structure that has almost completely vanished. Behind the walls, the castle was not just a military stronghold. In the early nineteenth century, nearly two hundred families lived here, with homes, storage areas and command buildings, forming a small fortified town. In the twentieth century, however, the site took on a far darker role. Between 1929 and 1932, a prison was built on the orders of King Zog, partly using stones taken from Ali Pasha’s former aqueduct, and it remained in use under successive regimes, including the Italian and German occupations and later the communist government. Political prisoners were held here until 1968, and the memory of their suffering still lingers within these walls. Today, the castle is also a place of culture and remembrance. It houses a military museum, a striking display of cannons, the wreckage of an American T-33 aircraft exhibited as a Cold War trophy, and the Prison of the Seven Windows, whose cells still show inscriptions left by former inmates. Since 1968, the fortress has also hosted the National Folklore Festival every five years, transforming this once feared and closed place into a vibrant cultural stage. As you walk along the ramparts, you can enjoy exceptional views over Gjirokastër and the surrounding mountains. Entrance costs only a few euros, but first, you’ll need to climb the steps that take you all the way to the top.