Berat - the city of windows one above the other / Albania

09/01/2023 - 09/03/2023

My first trip all alone...

Berat is a cute little place to first arrive in solo travel mode. Berat, a UNESCO world heritage site, is often referred to as the "city of a thousand windows", although this is a translation error, as our free walking tour guide Bruno explains to me. Berat is actually called the “city of windows one above the other”.

But I only found out about all of this and much more after my first little solo trip disaster: When I arrived at the hostel, I realized that I had left my charger at Magda's in Tirana... That's about the only thing besides Pass , credit card and money, which you shouldn't lose as a solo traveler... With the last 4 percent of the battery, I race off to find a Vodafone store. What a relief when I got a new charging cable there... My hostel is wonderfully located in old town alleys and offers enough garden for socializing, but almost everything in the hostel is broken, the kitchen is hardly usable and the dorm is pretty dirty.. ...Nevertheless, I'm happy to be staying there because that way I'll get to know Florian from Paris and later climb across the country with him down to the castle.

Back to the tour of Berat: New buildings are prohibited in 3 districts with the typical historic white houses. Thanks in particular to these three compact old town districts of Mangalem , Gorica and Kalaja (German: castle) and the many mosques and churches, Berat is considered one of the most important sights in the country. Not only do I learn a lot about the creation of Berat, the peaceful coexistence of Orthodox and Muslims (Bruno: "We here don't care at all what you believe in or don't believe in") and common Albanian corruption practices, no, I also learn a very nice one I met a Spanish couple who offered to give me a ride in their car the next day.