Berat Fortress

Out and About the ruins and bunkers

Day 3 Thursday Dec 29, 2012

Today we are moving to a new hotel tonight but we are starting to Durres which is a port city very close to Tirana. Many people in Tirana have summer homes down here or weekend homes. We saw that there was a train that goes between Durres and Tirana but our guide …

... of trees on various levels shading the whole building. On the peak behind the suburb are the remains of an Illyrian fortress - remains being a few foundation blocks here and there and the forested back of the hill covered in scattered marble chips. We ...

... did a fair bit of hiking today, mostly based on a spontaneous decision to climb up a questionable trail to a cliffside church below the fortress. Only two of the four of us (myself being one of them) thought it a grand idea. The other two thought we ...

... and of course, there are ubiquitous grapevines. I start my visit with a hike up to the oldest part of town, where the Illyrians built a fortress in the 3rd century BC. It has since been added to by the Byzantines, Serbs, and Turks, and was a pleasure to ...

... in Albania, but I didn't expect it to go to such extremes as an entire 4-hr bus ride. Once in Berat, we spent the afternoon walking around the castle/fortress and the old town area on a hill above town.  We also visited the Onufri museum.  ...

... , grey more than white but with two high towers separated by a terrace. On top of the highest mountain there is the fortress or castle now a weapons, giant guns, museum and a little house inside which two muslim priests are buried. Girokaster is called ...

... care and attention and seems to be a very poor area. The views over the surrounding valleys and hills and the ruins of the fortress were impressive, especially the collapsing stone steps down into an old cistern, which I didn't trust too far. A bit more ...

... main entrance, on the north side, is defended by a fortified courtyard and there are three smaller entrances. The fortress of Berat in its present state, even though considerably damaged, remains a magnificent sight. The surface that it encompasses made ...

... ;t understand how they have roughly hourly bus throughout the day but stop at 3:00. We only have 2 hours. The primary site is the fortress at the top of the hill. We walk that way, picking up a rotisserie chicken and snacks along the way. The outside is ...