Things to do in Berat

Berat is Albania’s showpiece: a UNESCO World Heritage city where tiers of white Ottoman houses climb both banks of the Osum river, their stacked windows giving the town its nickname — the “city of a thousand windows”. The Mangalem quarter rises on one side, Gorica faces it across the arched stone bridge, and a castle crowns the hill above.

Berat Castle is the rare fortress that is still a living neighbourhood: people inhabit its lanes as they have for centuries, between Byzantine churches, the remains of mosques, and the Onufri Museum’s luminous sixteenth-century icons. Walking tours thread the castle and the old quarters together and are the best way to understand how Christian and Muslim Berat grew side by side.

You can see Berat as a long day trip from Tirana — about two and a half hours each way — but an overnight stay rewards you with the old town after the buses leave, dinner above the river, and the castle at sunrise. Find walking tours and local experiences in the Wayward app.