“Albania 🇦🇱 ~The Medieval Village of Berat”
While we haven’t seen everything there is to see in Albania, we have seen a lot, as we begin to wrap up our adventures here, and make our way to a new country. We feel very filled-up with all things, Albania, and we are so glad we came!
The Medieval Village of Berat was another good choice to make our way too, as we always enjoy visiting @living” forts where we can. There are only a few of these amazing places left in the world and we have been to several.
In our travels, I seek out historical sites, as past histories excite me. In the people department, we love it when the locals help us feel welcome. Overall, we have enjoyed the locals, here in Albania.We definitely encourage anybody considering making a trip to Southern Europe, to stop in Albania. We loved the Alpine Mountains the best, up north; as we were a hop skip and a jump away from Montenegro, which we had also loved, when we visited there. The mountains and lakes up there are gorgeous!
Anyway, back to our most recent stop, in Berat. This town of Albania is ready to steal your heart with the beautiful ancient mythology, and the castle that will make you feel like you belong to a period of time when Kings and Queens lived.
The legend starts like this…..but hold on to your hats!
Once upon a time, before Berat, this beautiful village of Albania was built, the inhabitants of this place were happy. At one point, the inhabitants decided to do something to attract visitors, so each could have their own business to profit from. They all gathered together and made a place to build the town of 1000 windows. The plan was for each to build five windows in their home. They all agreed, but little did they know that Gezim the Vain would do something else. While everyone was building five windows, Gezim built six. Things went awry when the other neighbors learned what he did. They went over to his place and dragged Gezim and tied him with weights and threw him down the Osumi River.
Gezim was dead, and they threatened everyone to never mention the 1001st window. From then on the word of the town of 1000 windows spread like wildfire, and everybody wanted to see this miracle. People from all over the country rushed to see the town of 1000 windows. Everybody loved that about Berat, and it was thriving, until Gezim’s son became of age, and obviously mad at everyone for killing his father. So, he devised a plan!
He wrote a letter to everyone in the village, as well as to other municipalities. The last sentence written in the letter was a bomb for the townsfolk. “Berat had 1001 windows.”
The townsfolk were boiling-mad. They rushed to his house to punish him, but he and his family had tied themselves with weights and jumped into the river where his father had died. They had restored Gezim’s honor.
While the village was raging and thinking things would go down, the unexpected happened. People rushed more then before, to visit Berat, Albania, to find the house with six windows.
Even nowadays, people travel to Berat to find the last window, see the beauty of this wonderful little town with great architecture of Berat, located at the feet of Mountain Tomorr and on the shore of River Osumi.
As part of the Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastër UNESCO World Heritage Site, the church was possibly constructed in the fourteenth century and is dedicated to the Christian archangel of Michael.
The church is relative small in size and was constructed on the south of the Kalaja district on a steep rock. It is a cruciform chapel instilled without any internal support, with a dome on drum and narthex on the west section. It was built on a cruciform plan with a dome on the top. The walls are characterized by combination of rows of red brick with stone.
Inside the temple, the remains of painting walls retains only few trace. A collection of frescoes and icons have been preserved nowadays. In contrast to other churches in Berat, here observed proportions developed a higher level and a tendency to perfecting architectural forms.
Berat is one of the exceptional cities, which belongs to the early humankind history. Thousands years ago, when the damaging streams of the water fell down over the terrain, it created a massive rock, imposing over the river; welcoming the life of a city that survived for over 2400 years.
That city, result of a refined fantasy, attracting poets and painters. Cities like Berat do not have a simple genesis. It is a pre-urban period, which has lasted for two thousands years. This is proved by the discovery of two stone hammers and metallic remains in the Castle. The remains of a great number of ceramics, show for the growth of the settlements in that center.
Erected on top of a hill during the 4th century B.C., Berat Castle is as magnificent and elegant as it ever has been, and is the crown jewel of this glorious ancient city. Encircled by stone walls, with a total of twenty-four watchtowers, Berat Castle is certainly one of the most beautiful in Albania, if not the most beautiful of them all!
Its ancient name, dating back to 216 B.C., is Antipatrea. The view from its fortified courtyard reveals, as it did thousands of years ago, the entire city of Berat, the Osum River, and the old bridge of Gorica. The solemnity of the entrance to the castle, a large gate built on giant rocks, leaves a strong first impression.
Currently the castle is in restoration due in part to a UNESCO World Heritage Site acknowledgement.
Inside Berat castle houses many historical elements. A Mosque, “Red Mosque.” which can be identified by it’s lonely minaret (a staircase inside provides access to the top), more than 20 Christian churches, and a central museum which surrounds one of the largest Orthodox churches with many 16th century paintings, by “Master Onufri,” and a decorative alter inside. (many churches in Albania were destroyed during the Communist years as an “Atheist State” which was declared during Enver Hoxha’s reign).
Other architectural elements are court yards, a large cistern in the center, and numerous houses of stone, in which the residents of the castle still occupy today; this is an absolute specialty in castle heavy Europe, as it’s one of the last remaining!
Accessing the castle easily can only be done from the Southern side. Many people who continue to live in the castle enter and exit the Southern entrance as the Northern is a drop off to the Osum River.
The most striking thing about this castle is, unlike any other ancient castles, life inside its ancient walls continues to this day! The castle sustains the lives of its inhabitants; a life that is perhaps as isolated as it is privileged from this position atop the city.
What exists inside the castle is an entirely different world from the village of Berat
below. Inside the walled fort there are houses, bars and restaurants, churches and bazaars, museums and monuments, surrounded by an especially lush landscape which breathes even more life into this mythical place. It all seems very unreal!
The houses are located on one side of the castle, looking out over the river and the city below. For the locals, this view is quite common, for visitors, it’s absolutely breathtaking. The inhabitants, undoubtedly the most interesting characters of the castle neighborhood, are also the best unofficial historians of the city.
Constantine the Great was the founder of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, as well as the first Christian emperor. Quite the historical figure, as you will gather from the sheer size of this bust!
Holy Trinity Church is one of the oldest churches in Berat. Easily accessible, the church is located in the historic Mangalem neighborhood in Berat, on the southern side of the Berat Castle. Because of the steep terrain on which it stands, the castle has a beautiful panoramic view over the historic Gorica neighborhood, Osumi River, and the contemporary Berat Promenade, otherwise known as the famous UNESCO-protected harmonious ensemble that is. This ancient church was locked, so nobody was allowed to enter, unfortunately.
The church, one of the most visited in Berat, is considered to be one of the most well-constructed and best-preserved among the total of twenty-eight churches in Mangalem. Its construction dates back to the end of the 13th century, confirmed by an inscription on one of the church gates with the name of Andronicus Paleologus, Governor of the Berat province between 1302-1326. The construction is a wonderful representation of Byzantine architecture, where rows of tile and stone are perfectly intertwined. This technique played a crucial role in protecting the object from potential devastating war damages throughout the centuries.
The entire upper part of the church is dominated by the burnished red color of Byzantine tiles, culminating in the dome. The restorations made in 2016 focused mainly on this iconic roof as it was the most damaged part of the entire construction. The gradual intertwinement of red brick with white stone as one moves downward toward the church foundations, gives the church façade an understated, elegant kind of beauty. From the outside, one sees its dominant reddish dome stretch over both sides of the construction, resembling a cross, lending a sense of peacefulness to the entire city below.
Only ten of the thirty-five original churches, built since the 15th century, survive today.
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Hello and Welcome to our Travel Blog Website, We enjoy writing about our experiences and taking photos of our adventuring along the way. Our names are: Daryl and Pen, but Daryl calls me “Bunny.” We met, quite randomly, whilst both… Read More
Absolutely stunning, love the amount of detail you share and of course the photos are AWESOME. Thank you, again and again, for letting us vicariously explore the world through your eyes and wonderful words!
It just would not be the same travels without our you along, Laurie. We especially appreciate your support as we figure out this blog thing. Our first web guy did not do a good job, so it set us back. Our new guy, will get this fixed up right. Thx for your patience!