Set 130m high on a mountain next to Shkodër  in northwestern Albania is the Rozafa Castle. Being on top and looking around you can quickly get a sense of why the castle was setup on that specific location, as it offers panoramic view of the northern border of the now Albania. Being a relatively virgin […]

Inside the walls of the Berat Castle, within the area of Saint Maria’s Sleep Church, is the Onufri Museum – named after one of Albania’s finest artists. We had the pleasure of attending a tour of the place given by an attractive local tour-guide who took us through the church and the museum. She explained […]

Berat, the Albanian white city, has one major attraction which makes it a very popular among the tourists coming to Albania – the Berat Castle (Berat Kala). Unlike the castle I visited in Kruja which hosts museums, shops and restaurants, Berat Kala is still very much a residential area, offering gorgeous views of the area […]

Our explorations of the Balkan religions somehow always seemed to revolve around the topic of the exotic Bektashim religion and finally brought us to a tiny hidden gem in the outskirts of Alabnia, a town called Berat (or Berati). Generally speaking, Bektashism is a mysticism oriented Muslim Sufi order which was quite influential during the […]

This post is a wrap up of my visit to Albania’s little town of Kruja. So far, I’ve mentioned Kruja’s old bazaar, the  Kruje Castle and Skanderbeg National Museum and the terrific little National Ethnographic Museum. Still, there’s one little attraction not too far away from all those that’s worth mentioning – the Dollma Teqe, […]

Not too far away from the Kruje Castle and Skanderbeg National Museum is the National Ethnographic Museum featuring cultural exhibitions of Albanian traditional life.     The biggest attraction in this place, by far, is the lovely tour-guide who uses well rehearsed Albanian style English to demonstrate …

Kruje, a small city in Albania, has quite a lot to offer. One of the main attractions of Kruje is the Kruje Castle and the relatively new Skanderbeg National Museum hosted inside. Once there, we were received by an English fluent local tour guide who took us through the local Albanian history since the medieval […]

On the Balkanian trip we rode through the scenic and bare lands of Albania, probably the poorest country in Europe, still struggling to recover back from the wonders of authoritarian global seclusion. Generally, I would say that of all the Balkans, Albania offers relatively less for the spoiled tourist, but – aside from the views […]