Ardenica Monastery

Getting there

car. On a ridge off the Fier to Lushnjë road, half an hour from Apollonia and an easy pairing with it. Signed from the main road, with a short climb to the gate. Public transport is not worth the attempt.

Parking: Car park outside the gate.

Photography

Best light: morning, golden.

The church interior is the subject and it is dark and painted floor to ceiling, so it is slow to photograph and a tripod is something to ask about rather than assume. Outside, the ridge looks west over the plain and takes the evening. Check drone requirements with the AAC before travelling.

Drone: not confirmed. Albania's registration requirement is reported differently by every secondary source, so verify with the AAC before you fly.

Ardenica is a thirteenth-century monastery on a low ridge above the Myzeqe plain, and unlike most of what survives from that period in Albania it is still in use. The church of Saint Mary inside the walls is painted floor to ceiling by the Zografi brothers, who did much of the eighteenth-century work in this part of the Balkans.

It is best known locally as the place Skanderbeg is said to have married, which is on the sign at the gate and is not something the documentary record settles either way. The more useful reason to come is that it sits half an hour from Apollonia on a road most people are already driving.

There is a charge at the gate and a working religious rule about how you enter, so cover up. Out of season it is one of the quietest places on this list.