UNESCO guide · about 2½ hours from Tirana
Mangalem’s windows, the lived-in castle, the Onufri Museum, the Gorica bridge and where to eat and stay in Berat.
Albania feature
White houses climbing to a castle that people still call home.
Stay a night, climb to the Kala at dawn, see Onufri’s icons and cross the Gorica bridge for the view of the thousand windows.
Read the full back story below, then plan your trip.
The back story
The town of a thousand windows: white Ottoman houses stacked up a hillside below a castle that is still lived in, on a river between mountains. Berat is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most beautiful towns in the Balkans.
Still lived in
The hilltop castle quarter of Berat, with houses, churches and views.
KalajaExplore View on map
Icons in Onufri red
Icons by the 16th-century painter Onufri, in the Church of the Dormition inside the castle.
KalajaExplore View on map
The thousand windows
The hillside quarter of white Ottoman houses below the castle.
MangalemExplore View on map
The best view of Mangalem
The pedestrian bridge across the Osum to the Gorica quarter.
Ura e GoricësExplore View on map
Inside an Ottoman house
A traditional Berat house showing daily life, crafts and costume.
MangalemExplore View on map
Rafting and tubing
A deep limestone canyon near Çorovodë, south-east of Berat, for rafting in spring and tubing in summer.
A church on the castle hill
A medieval Byzantine church on a hill in Berat’s castle quarter, part of the UNESCO site.
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Built for single shopkeepers
An 1828 mosque in lower Mangalem, with arcades, a low minaret and painted interiors.
MangalemExplore View on map
Dinner in a family home
Home cooking served in a family house in Berat.
Rruga Llambi GuxhumaniExplore View on map
In Mangalem
A hotel in traditional houses in Mangalem, with a well-known restaurant terrace.
Rruga Mihal KomnenoExplore View on map
In Gorica
A boutique hotel in a restored house in the Gorica quarter.
GoricaExplore View on map
About 2½ hours from Tirana
Buses and furgons run from Tirana to Berat in about two and a half hours.
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