Everyone loves this quirky little town about 2 hours by bus from Triana. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In fact, Albania is a tourism hotspot in 2026. Berat had 50,000 tourists a year a decade ago. Today it’s 1 million.

BUT I recall when Albania was off limits to tourists. During the repressive communist regime of Enver Hoxha (1944–1985), Albania became one of the most isolated “hermit states” in the world.

Enver Hoxha was a totalitarian dictator who ruled Albania with extreme repression, paranoia, and isolationism from 1944 until 1985. He closed all churches & mosques, for example.

Like Trump, he wanted his name everywhere — including on this mountain seem from Berat. BUT in 2012 the first two letters were swapped to spell NEVER as part of an art project by filmmaker Armando Lulaj.

Brilliant.

Berat is much more than just “the city of a thousand windows“. There are NOT a thousand windows. That’s a marketing tag line that started as a language misinterpretation — but stuck. 😀

There’s a great hostel. I paid 12 Euro / night ($14) including breakfast. Sweet.

Berat was +45C recently, the highest temperature ever recorded.

SO I decided to climb up to Berat Castle in the cooler evening. It’s open 24 hours / day as families still live there.

Next day I climbed the slope opposite Berat Castle, Gorica Hill.

More great vistas.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.