Berat - hot in here

Berat is in my opinion the most beautiful small towns I have been. The houses are original ones from the Ottomans' times but one can also find small churches and houses from the Greek times (before the Ottomans). It was also surprising to see the different religions of Albania side by side peacefully.

To start the exploration one can simply walk through the lower part of the town along the osum river. There you find the Lead mosque as well as the new built Orthodox church, lots of Ottoman houses and a caravanserai with the Halveti Teqe. That Teqe is an original Cemevi from the 18th century with a beautiful wooden ceiling:

The Halveti Teqe.

Inside the teqe.

The wooden ceiling.

Another part of the caravanserai is the King Mosque:

The King Mosque.

Inside the mosque.

Inside the mosque.

Closer look at the ceiling.

Another wooden ceiling in the mosque.

The caravanserai is an exciting place but there is nobody who can explain you anything. When Berat became a UNESCO world heritage they installed a voice system that you can rent headphones with information of all interesting places of the town. As normal, bit by bit the headphones got broken but there is no funding and no will to repair them.

Another attraction of Berat is its castle. I really like heat and even 40°C is OK as long the air is dry. But that day there was 43°C with a high humidity and without clouds spending shadow. The ascent to the castle is not very steep nor very long but I felt that it took ages and I was totally tired after reaching the castle. Listening to
Ian Pooley - 900 Degrees
will push you up the hill as well. At the road towards the castle there is the impressive building of the Bank of Albania and the ethnographic museum.

The building of the bank of Albania.

Road towards the castle. OK, it is steeper than I remembered.

The museum was closed for an unknown reason but the security men of the museum was bored and happy to see somebody. I couldn't understand him and he invited me to the closed museum to get some shadow and water. Perfect! Well, it turned out that he expected some money but that was worth it.

Building of the ethnographic museum.

Being illegal - inside the museum.

View from the museum at the road to the castle.

Further ascending - view down to the city.

The entrance of the castle.