Rozafa Castle

Getting there

car, bus. Three kilometres southwest of Shkodër on the Lezhë road, with a paved access road up to a car park below the gate and a short steep walk from there. Taxis and city buses run out from the centre.

Parking: Car park below the entrance; it fills with coaches in summer.

Photography

Best light: golden, sunset.

The castle stands over the meeting of the Drin, the Buna and the Kir with Lake Shkodra beyond, and it faces west, so the view is an afternoon and sunset subject. 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.

Rozafa is the reason to give Shkodër an afternoon. The castle sits on a limestone ridge three kilometres out of town, over the point where the Drin, the Buna and the Kir meet and Lake Shkodra opens out behind them, and the walls run far enough along the ridge that the view keeps changing as you walk them.

Inside is a long Illyrian, Venetian and Ottoman layering, with a museum in the restored church at the top and the legend the castle is named for, a woman walled into its foundations, on every information board. There is a fee at the gate.

It faces west. Come in the last two hours of the day and the confluence and the lake are lit; come at midday in August and you get hot stone and haze.