Berat

Getting there

car, bus. About two hours from Tirana on good road, and the easiest inland stop to slot into a north-south route. The castle road is steep, cobbled and drivable.

Parking: Paid parking below Mangalem; limited space inside the castle walls.

Photography

Best light: morning, golden.

Mangalem faces roughly east across the river, so the windows are lit in the morning and the Gorica side takes the evening. The town is at its worst in the flat August middle of the day. 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.

Berat is the easy win of the shoulder season. The Mangalem quarter is a single hillside of white houses whose windows are stacked so regularly that the town's nickname wrote itself, and the castle above it is not a ruin: people live inside the walls, and the churches up there are working buildings rather than exhibits.

It is also the best-placed inland town in the country. Tirana is two hours north, Gjirokastër three hours south, the Osum canyon is within an hour, and the wine country starts at the edge of town. That makes Berat the natural second or third night of almost any route that is not purely coastal.

April to June and September to November are the months. July and August are hot in a valley that holds heat, and the light between about ten and four goes flat and hazy, which is a real problem in a town whose whole subject is a hillside of white facades.