The ranks of elegant Ottoman-era houses climbing up the hillside to Berat’s citadel offers a photogenic view which is famous in Albania. The neighbourhood of Mangalemi, just below the citadel, is under protection as a site of cultural heritage meaning that its cobbled alleys have been preserved, and there are a number of great boutique hotels to stay in here....

As you approach Kruja and look up at the town perched high on an escarpment you’ll understand immediately why the Albania hero of resistance against the Ottomans built his castle here. The castle can still be explored, together with the ‘Historical Museum’ designed in mock-castle style by Enver Hoxha’s daughter. There is also an interesting Ethnological Museum. But a more...

The spectacular Socialist Realist mosaic across the front of the National Historical Museum is its most dramatic feature. Inside there are exhibits of a pre-historical, historical and ethnographic nature. There are special exhibitions on the world’s most famous Albanian, Mother Theresa, on the Second World War, and on the ‘Communist Terror’. Very little signage is in English which makes a...