Gjirokastër, Albania

We were able to sleep not too poorly considering the time difference (all of the places we’re visiting in this trip are six hours ahead of Toronto).

It was still raining. According to the forecast it was 100% chance of rain every hour, as far out as my iPhone gave forecasts by the hour. Luckily we had planned mostly indoor stuff today.

First up was breakfast, in the hotel restaurant seated beside a cosy warm fireplace. Breakfast was huge, which was good cause I was hungry. They made excellent cappuccinos too.

We bundled up for the rain and cold (about 13C) and headed out for the Castle of Gjirokastër. The old town is very compact - it took us about five minutes to walk up to the main gates.

Unsurprisingly, we were the only tourists at the castle today. It was amazing having the whole site to ourselves. Although, the castle has a very dark history, still within memory of current residents of Gjirokastër.

The entry fee includes admission to a couple excellent onsite museums. It took us a couple hours to see the whole thing. The rain and leaky castle walls added to atmosphere, especially in the prison cells.

Next, we attempted to walk to the Zekate House, but it was still pouring and the slate streets had turned into rivers, soaking our shoes through. So we called into a couple craft shops on the way back to the hotel, had lunch at a random open place (which was really good) and that was it for the day.

We were running out of places to hang our wet stuff between yesterday and today. Showered to get warm and clean, relaxed for a bit.

The hotel had recommended a couple restaurants for dinner, of which we tried the pizza place tonight. It had finally stopped raining when we walked to the restaurant - it was an odd feeling not being pounded by rain.

The pizza place was busy with locals. There was also what appeared to be two other tables with tourists! So we weren’t the only tourists in town :) Dinner was okay; we preferred the lunch place.

It was raining again as we left the restaurant so we just went back to the hotel instead of walking around town a bit. The forecast for tomorrow looks better, and then supposedly sunshine for the three days we’re in Berat. Let’s hope!