13 Wonderful Things To Do In Gjirokaster, Albania | The City of Stone

Planning a stop or stay in Stone City of Gjirokaster? Our travel better guide’s got you covered, with our advice on where to find the best views, our favourite things to do, and where to stay.

“Everything in the city was old and made of stone, from the streets and fountains to the roofs of the sprawling age-old houses covered with grey slates like gigantic scales. It was hard to believe that under this powerful carapace the tender flesh of life survived and reproduced.”

– Chronicle of Stone, Ismail Kadare –

Gjirokaster has two famous sons.

Raised in the same street nearly three decades apart, the dictator and the writer shared a love of literature, an alma matter, and a French connection.

Both, despite their vastly different paths, were deeply influenced by Gjirokaster’s rich folklore and history.

Whether through love or fear, for most of the 20th century Enver Hoxha – the resistance fighter turned Communist dictator – was the favoured son of this old stone city in the valley. His statue, once pride of place in the main square, was one of the last to fall in Albania as the one-party state crumbled.

The other, a thin bespectacled chain-smoker, wrote of tilted silver streets, blood feuds, resistance, and fallen soldiers. Constrained by life under Hoxha’s regime, Ismail Kadare critiqued under a veil of allegory and symbolism, until he left for exile France in 1990, just a year before the statue fell.

The freedom of one son – and the country – always intertwined with the rule and long shadow of the other.

In modern day Gjirokaster, vastly different but achingly similar to the one they knew, the contrasting status of their childhood homes reflects the stark divergence of their legacies. While Kadare’s former residence is now a testament to his literary works and status as Albania’s greatest author, Hoxha’s is an ethnographic museum a few doors down where one must open black boxes in a darkened room to learn of his ruthless cruelty.

One son speaks for Albania; the other’s name almost goes unspoken.

As soon as we arrived in Gjirokaster, we knew we really should have had longer.

Nowhere else on our two-week road trip in Albania had that effect, and we were quickly thankful the rogue suggestion by one half of Along Dusty Roads to make a last-minute itinerary change and miss Gjirokaster altogether (in favour of the beach, naturally) was promptly discounted.

Don’t make the same mistakes as we did, and almost did, dear reader.

A UNESCO World Heritage town set within the stunning Drino Valley, Gjirokaster offers historical insights, culture, hiking, Ottoman architecture, and a surprisingly good laid back nightlife in its nooks, alleys, and slanted cobblestone streets.

In this guide, we’ve shared the essential context and best things to in Gjirokaster, alongside recommendations on where to stay, eat, and advice on transport connections (and the parking situation).

This is 13 Wonderful Things To Do in Gjirokaster, Albania.

The Castle of Gjirokastra

Depending on where you are on your Albania itinerary, you may be a little over castles.

Gjirokaster was our penultimate stop on the two-week road trip, and we won’t pretend that there wasn’t a little bit of that with us after exploring those in Kruje and Shkodra.

However, Gjirokaster’s is an impressive and enjoyable one to explore – offering more than just history and information boards –  with the photogenic rooftop providing the most spectacular view available of the old and modern parts of the ‘stone town’ and the crumpled mountains.

There’s also an American military plane up there with a very Cold War origin story.

Built in the 12th century but significantly expanded when the Ottomans captured Gjirokastër in the early 15th century, the imposing citadel was a major military stronghold in the region under Ali Pasha.

The medieval castle continue to play an unsettlingly pivotal role through the 20th century: its prisons – the last and largest built in the 1930s – were used by King Zog in the 1930s, the Italians and Germans in World War Two, and the communist rulers until they closed them down in the 1960s (trust us, they had plenty other equally chilling prison sites scattered around the place).

By the way those small, dark subterranean prison cells next to the kitchen are harrowing and neither of us could last more than 20 seconds in them with our phone torches on.

Where + When | The castle is open every day from 9am to 7pm –  find it here on Google Maps.

It’s also the venue for the National Folk Festival, celebrating Albania’s cultural traditions with music, dance, and costumes. It’s held every five years (last in 2023), but we’ve read so many different answers on frequency and when it takes place – from a week at the end of June and beginning of July to September/October – that we’re sort of flummoxed about how you can actually plan around it or not.

From the historic centre, there are a few different routes to walk up to the castle along a slippy patchwork of old cobblestones. and the best one is going via the Bazaar and turning right, as the other way is steeper and slippier.

If arriving by car on a day trip, we’re didn’t see any parking space in the immediate vicinity of the castle, so you’re probably best parking further down for the guarantee of a space, and not getting stuck in a very narrow one-way street in first gear.

If you do find a good place to park nearby though, let us know in the comments!

Tickets | It’s 400 lek admission for adults, free for children under 12 years old.

This does not include entry to the The National Armaments Museum (also known as The Weapons Museum, Gjirokastër Museum and the Castle Museum), which is situated within some of the prisons and costs an additional 200 Lek. Although the published hours note 9am-7pm, it was closed when we visited, so do let us know if you have an update.

Know | As the views are so wonderful up on the expansive rooftop area, we’d recommend prioritising a visit for golden hour and sunset – but this obviously won’t be possible for everyone.

The rooms, levels, and rooftop of the castle are larger than you may expect, so it’s a good idea to arrive with plenty time to have a meaningful visit rather than a last-minute rush around everything (we suggest two hours is sensible but a little longer if pairing with sunset).

Top Tip // If you’re only spending a short while in Gjirokaster and want to cover the main sites quickly, whilst gaining a more in-depth insight into the history of not just the castle, but the town more generally, consider this excellently priced three-hour walking tour (it’s also available on GetYourGuide).

The Cold War Tunnel

Damp and dark, with rusted steel roads poking through the crumbled concrete, there perhaps isn’t a better physical representation of what once was in Albania than Gjirokaster’s Cold War Tunnel.

As we explain in 23 Things To Know Before You Visit Albania, there are thousands of tunnels, bunkers, and pillboxes all over the country, constructed in a (not entirely mis-placed) frenzy of paranoia about invasions and coup attempts from enemies east and west.

Gjirokaster’s, built by political prisoners in the 1970s, was meant to accommodate up to 300 elites and three months of supplies across its 59 rooms, and act as a sort of emergency shelter and nerve centre.

Such events never came to pass, but locals supposedly knew nothing of the 1.5km tunnel’s existence beneath the castle until the hermitic Communistic regime fell in the early 1990s.

This tunnel is very different to the more known Bunk’Art versions that you will visit in Tirana. Where those have been renovated and restyled into modern museums on Albania’s 20th century story of resistance-turned-repression, this site of dripping pipes very much looks and feels like an untouched time capsule.

The photogenic state of decay and abandon is certainly part of the appeal and curiosity though, with the rooms full of yellowing books and magazines, olive green metal chairs, rusting Czech generators in the energy room, and black telephones on desks intended for the highest ranks.

What an escape room it would make…

Where + When | The Cold War Tunnel, also known as Muzeu i Luftës së Ftohtë, is a short walk outside the historical centre of Gjirokaster – find it here on Google Maps.

However, you actually buy tickets and meet the guides nearby outside the small tourism office in Çerçiz Topulli Square, next to a political party HQ – here on Google Maps. The people working there are friendly and speak good English, with a decent tourist map and recommendations available, so it’s not a bad idea to pop in at some point.

Tours start at 9am and leave on the hour, every hour until 5pm (the last tour). Note that you cannot go into the tunnels without the guided tour.

Tickets | The system is a bit segmented, and it’s not possible to buy or reserve your place in advance, so we recommend arriving at theoffice 10 minutes before the start time to get your ticket.

It only costs 200 lek each, cash only.

Our tour lasted just 20 minutes, but we know lots of travellers have had a much shorter one due to smaller groups. They don’t seem to have any limits, and ours ballooned up to about 40 people due to a last-minute Spanish school arrival. That was far too many for such a confined space, and made it impossible for many to hear the guide’s explanations unless you were at the front; we gave constructive feedback and the guide said forty was exceptional and smaller groups the norm.

Know // We think that Gjirokaster’s Cold War Tunnel has the potential to the best place to learn about the real story behind Albania’s 20th century bunker-building mania in an unsanitised, evocative environment. The young guides are doing their best, but currently the standard tour is too brief and limited in scope, and they need to cap group numbers to give the best experience to everyone.

Hang Out At Te Kubé & The ‘Home of Iso-Polophony’

This is one of the coolest spaces we visited in Albania.

A cultural centre as much as a cafe, Te Kubé is housed in the series of small vaulted rooms in the arcade under the Bazaar Mosque. As well as a healthy veggie-friendly menu and various homemade treats, the family-run business has a wonderfully curated selection of books, crafts, art, and music to peruse (we still regret not buying the ‘At Least Wave Your Handkerchief At Me’ vinyl).

Rather surprisingly, it’s also the setting for the ‘Home of Iso-Polophony’. This complex, choral folk music from Albania, which we didn’t know about until we step foot in Te Kubé, is bewitching and their small sound tunnel serves as a perfect, interactive introduction to it.

We genuinely expected not to enjoy it, but several tracks actually made it onto Andrew’s Rota Vincentina playlist and was on in the background whilst writing these guides (Balluket e ballot moj is a banger, especially when you need some motivation on a 250km along the coast of Portugal).

The only thing that we felt could improve was the coffee…

Where + When | You can find Te Kubé here on Google Maps, and it’s a welcoming laptop-friendly co-working space for any digital nomads.

From April to October, it’s open from 8am-10pm, whilst in the winter months it’s 8am-6pm. 

It’s nestled away under the Bazaar Mosque, one of the only permitted to remain standing in Gjiorkaster when the Communists banned religion and demolished or repurposed most of the country’s churches and mosques (Shkodër has an excellent exhibition on this policy).

Travel Tip // Speaking of books, the two we bought + brought with us to read on the road trip were excellent. The first is Freedom by Lia Ypi, a surprisingly entertaining biographical account of her childhood in Albania in the late 80s and early 90s. The second is Mud Sweeter Than Honey, a power collection of testimonies about life under the Communist regime.

If you want to read and have a coffee with a view, then another good option in Gjirokaster is the rooftop of Hotel Kodra.

THE TALE OF PRINCESS ARGJIRO 

Gjirokastër is thought to be named after a tragic Byzantine princess.

The legend goes that when the Ottoman forces invaded in the 15th century, she ran with babe in arms to the top of the castle. Faced with the choice of capture and awful consequences, Argjiro jumped to her death from the ramparts.

The baby survived the fall,  and lived by suckling from his dead mother’s breast – and then from the rocks from which milk also began to flow.

It’s an important story of resistance and courage in Albania’s identity, and there’s a statue of the defiant Princess and her baby in the castle. However, the etymological roots are shaky, with the more likely source being from the Greek Argyrokastro, meaning silver castle.

(if you’ve read our Shkoder guide, you’ll note that this is the second tragic tale of a woman’s sacrifice in a castle in the country’s folklore)

The Hoxha Home: Ethnographic Museum

The challenge? What to do with the childhood home of the man who ruled over your country with an iron fist for just over four decades.

For much of the 20th century, it would have been a point of pride and favour for Gjirokaster that Enver Hoxha was born and brought up here. The teacher turned resistance fighter and founding member of the Communist Party in Albania was a national hero, but slowly tightened his grip on power. Under his one-party, one-leader dictatorship, the country was cut off from the rest of the world, impoverished, and many lived a miserable, persecuted life.

Think of it as North Korea across the water from Italy. 

Until his death and the dramatic shift to a multiparty democracy in 1991 though, ‘Uncle Enver’ was as close to a God as one was allowed to have in a place where all religion was banned.

The easier choice would have been to simply tear down his childhood home and pretend that the past never existed, both removing the stain and any chance of it being a site of veneration or pilgrimage.

The better choice? Use the opportunity to create some light from the darkness.

Remodelled in 2022, the childhood home of Enver Hoxha is now The Ethnographic Museum. Set within a beautiful, light filled four-storey traditional Ottoman house – one of several you can visit in Gjirokaster – it is well curated, engaging, and a user-friendly introduction to ethnography and Albanian cultures (great for kids too without being too twee).

It also engages artfully with Hoxha’s life, legacy, and his connections with the building.

So, rather than being a dark tourism site to gawk at and whisper about, this is now an absolutely unmissable and important thing to do in Gjirokaster.

Where + When | Open every day from 9am-6pm, the Ethnographic Museum is a 10-minute walk from the historical centre – find it here on Google Maps.

Costs | It’s 500 lek for adults, and we think it’s worth the cost which is relatively high for similar cultural venues. Buy tickets at the entrance, cards accepted.

Ismail Kadare’s House & The Ottoman Homes

The childhood home of the city’s other famous son, the prolific author Ismail Kadare, is just a few streets away from Hoxha’s, and has also been preserved as a museum. Offering insights into his personal life and writings, it’s a good introduction to Albania’s greatest writer, but could have a little more on display; those who have read Chronicle in Stone or other works will get more out of it.

The original structure burnt down in 1999 and, whilst it has been tastefully restored, does suffer a little from the modern finish if you’re looking to really feel and appreciate the architecture of a traditional 18th/19th century Ottoman-style house.

Thankfully, there are no shortage of those in Gjirokaster – it’s sort of what it’s famous for – and it makes sense to add one or two on immediately before / after your visit to either or both of Kadare’s Home and the Ethnographic Museum.

The Skënduli House (maps), built in 1700, is still owned by the Skënduli family. We popped by but nobody was about, everything looked a bit too far gone, and the entry was going to be €3 per person, so we left. Further research makes us think that the person was probably leading a tour upstairs in the house, so do let us know if you think it’s a better experience than our first impression or not.

A better option is probably the Zekate House. Also still run by the owner family, it has a small cafe and excellent views (maps). Full disclosure: we didn’t have time to go there, so can’t vouch for it, but definitely seems to be the better one to prioritise of the pair.

We don’t expect you to visit all four houses, but they are a short walking distance from one another so you should absolutely pair up at least two.

Where + When | You can find Ismail Kadare’s home here on Google Maps, and it’s open every day from 9am-6pm

Costs | It’s 500 lek for the Kadare Home, 300 lek for the Skënduli House, and 200 lek for Zekate.

Know // If you’d like to know more about Kadare, who only passed away this year, and his works, then this is a good piece: A tribute to Ismail Kadare, a writer who really deserved a Nobel Prize.

Alternatively, literary buffs may be interested in joining this expert-led tour private walking tour, specifically about the author.

Cocktails On The Cobblestones

We’re not total pissheads at Along Dusty Roads (well, at least one of us isn’t), but it was the atmospheric evening vibe of Gjirokaster which really made us wish we had planned to stick around for a another night or two on our Albania road trip.

Perhaps it was the little tables on softly-lit cobbled streets or the evening xhiro, but it invoked fond memories of our Italian summers, and was much more our style and set-up than what we found on the coast and in Tirana. Spread across the historic centre, but mostly pivoting around Qafa e Pazarit (maps), it was surprisingly rowdy and loud on some corners, but if you wander around you’ll find a street and a place to suit whatever atmosphere you want that evening.

Our favourite was Hangover Cocktail Bar (maps), which made the best cocktails we had in the country, a good playlist, and laid back vibe. You could also pay by card.

Babameto 2 (maps), with carpets and cushions on the stone benches, is a cool spot to hang out on warm summer evenings. It has an extensive, entertaining and slightly over-priced menu of cocktails around the myths & legends of Albania, including the controversially named #5 (the bad taste is surprisingly more from the minty mouthwash flavour than the nomenclature – we highly recommend not ordering it).

We were surprised to find an Irish Pub next door which, unsurprisingly, seemed to be the loudest, liveliest spot in town and is one of handful of bars and restaurants with rooftops or terraces offering views on the lit castle.

In a side street of the historic centre, you’ll find O’Clock and The Black Rose Pub (maps), both of which looked like they may either be cool late-night spots or places to avoid – our impressions changed each time we walked past. 

Let us know your favourites in the comments!

For food, we really enjoyed our lunch at Simple Restaurant (maps), whilst Kujtim Restaurant (maps) is popular for traditional food on the terrace. Edua is another favourite with visitors (maps).

Travel Tip // If you’d like to learn more about Albanian food and how to cook a couple of dishes once you return home, consider joining a cooking class whilst in Gjirokaster. This one is particularly highly rated, but if you’re not a meat eater, the good news is that there is also the option to do a vegetarian cooking class.

Browse The Bazaar & Historic Centre

Between the castle, the Cold War tunnel, and the cocktails, most of your day in Gjiroskaster will be spent wandering around the narrow streets of the compact, historic centre.

Renowned for the pale, stone Ottoman-era architecture, it slopes and slants up toward the castle atop the hill, and is very easy on the eye.

The multi-sided Qafa e Pazarit is the main landmark (maps), and most points of interest fan out from it on the cobblestone streets. Gjirokastër’s ‘bazaar’ is really just the shops situated around here, dressed in kalaedisocopic carpets, colourful cushions, and a variety of genuine and not so genuine memorabilia from past wars and various double-eagled souvenirs.

There are also a handful of proper artisans working in stone and wood, and they’re definitely worth your time if looking for something interesting to take home or worthwhile to support.

The best plan is to simply wander to your own rhythm and curiosity, but a few places to take note of are:

Bonna Design | Handmade clothes

This Shop | We don’t know the name, but it’s a unique little marble / painter studio

Antiques | Antique shops on opposite sides of the street run by two brothers

There’s also a lovely little bakery run by a friendly husband and wife and you should absolutely pop in for a warm berek if you see them pulling a big tray out of the oven.

If you’re in need of a caffeine kick or late afternoon drink after the castle, then grab a table on Rruga Gjin Bue Shpata (maps)- at the top end of that street, there’s also a cool shop/museum in a short tunnel stuffed full of vintage pieces that charges €1 to pop in for a look.

Travel Tip // If based here, we suggest beginning your morning with a slow stroll through the historic streets before many of the bazaar stall holders have opened and any day trippers arrived. The quiet atmosphere with a town waking up, old boys sipping their first coffee of the day, bakeries turning out piping hot borek, and a sense of what Gjirokaster would be like without the tourists, is a joy. 

Hikes in Gjirokaster

We prioritised two days on our road trip to do the unforgettable Valbona Pass hike up in the far north of Albania (the best experience we had in the whole country), and didn’t actually look into any hikes in the south.

That was silly of us, and again added to the feeling that we should have switched out a day on the coast for another in the Stone City: the landscapes of the surrounding Drino Valley are truly majestic.

The walk to Ali Pasha bridge (maps) is a popular thing do in Gjirokaster, and easy to do independently in a couple of hours round-trip from the centre of town. We simply ran out of time to fit it in!

However, if you’re going to be in town for a few more day in the right season, then there are a number of longer day trip hikes and trails in the area to consider, including:

· Monastery of Spilea

· Monastery of Raven

· Antigonea Park

·Çajupi Mountain

We only learned of these after we arrived in Gjiorkaster and saw several hiking tours advertised outside the offices of C-Adventures, and so wanted to share them with you. You may also be able to do them independently, but we haven’t done the research.

We have a feeling that, as Albania becomes more popular each year, hiking in Gjirokaster is going to become really popular, so do let us know if you head out and what / where you recommend.

You may also be interested in checking out a couple this super popular white water rafting trip in the Vjosa River, one of Europe’s last free-flowing rivers, or horse-riding tour in the national park.

Where To Stay in Gjirokaster

In a nutshell, the majority of travellers will want to be based up in old Gjirokaster, rather than down in modern Gjirokaster by the highway. Ideally, you should opt for a place set within a traditional Ottoman house, or offering a view over the historic centre rooftops, but this can impact availability and budget.

To save you time and stress, we’ve shared our personal pick of the best accommodations for a variety of travel styles.

Hotels

We made a last-minute booking at Bed and Breakfast Kotoni, a family run place in the historic centre. It’s small, friendly and does a great breakfast but ensure you aren’t allocated the small, claustrophobic and musty double next to the reception – the other rooms are much better and have good reviews.

Boutique Hotel Musée| If you’re looking for a beautiful hotel in a historic building that gives you an authentic taste of Ottoman design, make it Hotel Musée. The rooms are gorgeous (particularly the deluxe suite), and guests speak very highly of the helpful owner and the excellent breakfast.

Hotel SS KEKEZI | Many of the hotels in places like Berat and Gjirokaster are of a super traditional style, making the most of their Ottoman period features. Kekezi has plenty of these, but the owners have put a really modern slant on the design. Also benefits from a gorgeous terrace and decent restaurant.

The lovely DAM Stone Boutique HotelandBelaj’s Housealso do an excellent job of combining the contemporary with the traditional, the latter also having a gorgeous roof terrace overlooking the town (opt for the deluxe double if it’s available – the original frescoes are incredible).

Hotel Kalemi 2 and Hotel Gjirokastra are two other highly-rated options.

If you’re visiting during the peak summer months and are worried about melting in the heat, there are a few highly rated hotels with pools, including Sokaku i te Marreve GuestHouseand Rose Garden Hotel.

Airbnb

Given most people will only stay in Gjirokaster for a night or two, the abundance of truly excellent, well-priced accommodation in the town, and the fact that breakfast is almost always included in the rate, there’s little need to opt for an Airbnb.

If however you really would prefer to have your own kitchen, there are a few highly-rated options to choose from including: Villa Shehu, this small house in the old town, Dhami Apartment, Paspali House, Melodia, City Grove and House of Art.

Hostels

Stone City Hostel | Winner of the ‘Best Hostel in Albania’ in 2024 (for the fourth year in a row), this gorgeous hostel set within a historic building is super cosy, well-designed, and the sort of place that makes backpackers swoon. They offer mostly dorms (but they do have one private), have excellent inside and outside communal areas, a great guest kitchen and organise all sort of trips to explore the local area (with their jeep tour into the mountains sounding absolutely fantastic).

Friends Hostel | More average than the option above (though still clean, comfortable and functional), it has more of a guesthouse-with-dorms than real hostel vibe but still has excellent reviews. Also benefits from an excellent terrace.

How To Get to Gjirokaster

It makes sense to visit Gjirokaster before or after you hit the southern coast, and you can only get there by car or bus.

By Car

The holiday towns of Sarandë (1 hour, 55km) and Ksamil (90 minutes, 68km), or you could drive for about two hours to arrive from the more wild and natural beaches outside Himarë (102km).

If you are staying in or around Sarandë and Ksamil, it is feasible to visit Gjiorkaster on a day trip, but yo would need to set off quite early to make it worthwhile.

Road trippers may wish to stop at the Blue Eye on the way to or from Gjiorkaster; one of most famous sites in Albania, it’s an hour’s drive from the Stone City but you have to set your GPS to include it, rather than take the quicker, newer highway.

We don’t think it’s a good idea to visit the pretty town of Berat immediately before or after Gjirokaster as they’re quite similar, so one inevitably feels the need to compare.

Note that there is a totally brand new road from the highway into Gjirokaster, and Google Maps still hasn’t got this logged. Until that changes, we recommend you ignore your GPS – it may also send you via a tiny village – and keep going along the highway until a roundabout/turning where there’s a very clear and obvious new tarmac road with bright yellow lines on the left hand side.

Plan // Our Albania Road Trip Itinerary + The 19 Best Beaches in Albania

PARKING

Like Italy, there are parts of Gjirokaster’s historic centre that you can’t and won’t want to attempt to drive in or through, and the layout is quite confusing on arrival. Our guesthouse said parking is always an issue in and around the old town, especially for tourists on day trips with cars, and the youngest son actually had to come meet us and sat in the back seat to direct us as we drove in (it’s for moments like this that the local SIM card is worth its weight in gold).

There was a lot of construction underway on the outskirts of town, and options will greatly improve once a three-storey underground parking lot by Çerçiz square is completed (see update below), but the best bet for some day trippers will be to park in one of the free places a 5-10 minute walk down from the old town. Just be aware that you may need to drive around for a while to find a free space if you’re arriving during busy times or the weekend, and the further away from the centre you stop, the steep and longer the walk up.

For those staying a few nights, we recommend asking your accommodation for the best free place to go or opting for one with private guest parking.

Here are some of the options for parking we used and saw:

· The new underground Sheshi Çerçiz Topulli parking lot is now apparently open, and it’s going to be the most convenient option for day trippers. Prices start at 300 lek for 3 hours (maps)

· Alternatively there are some free places 10 minutes from historic centre (maps)

· On the new road into the city, arriving in from the opposite side to Sheshi Çerçiz Topulli, there were lots of cars parked on the road side too.

Let us know in the comments if you find any other decent, free options or the impact of the new road and underground parking.

By Bus

There are daily buses to Gjirokaster from Saranda, Vlorë, Berat and Tirana’s Sheshi Shqiponja bus station. Note that you might get dropped off far below the historic centre, requiring a lift, a taxi, or a walk up.

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