Gjirokastër Castle: Tickets, What Is Inside and When to Go

Gjirokastër Castle is won in the morning. It sits on a ridge with no cover from the sun, it holds a whole afternoon of things to look at, and it asks for two separate tickets, one for the fortress and one for the arms museum inside it. Pay both in cash, in lek, and arrive before the town warms up.

Which ticket for the castle

The main ticket takes you through the gate and onto the ridge, where the towers, the clock tower, the prison and the open-air exhibits all sit. It costs €4.40. That ticket alone is enough for a first look, and the prison and the view are included.

The arms museum is inside the walls and sells its own ticket, so the price at the gate does not cover it: €2.20. If you only want the view and the prison, skip it. If you like the story of the war years told with real weapons, it is worth the extra queue.

When to come

The ridge is exposed, and in July and August the stone and the sun make it the hottest place in town. Arrive before 9 in summer, or come late in the afternoon when the walls have started to cool. In spring and early autumn the timing matters less, though a morning start still keeps the steep walk comfortable.

After dark the castle is lit, and the best view of it comes from the bazaar below, with a glass in your hand. That makes it a visit with a second act, and it costs nothing. Come up in the morning, then look back at it from a table in the evening.

Through the castle in order

Start at the entrance, where an Italian L6/40 light tank stands by the gate, then walk in past the five towers, the clock tower, the church, the fountains and the stables. Ali Pasha, who held the town from 1811, added to the fortress in the 19th century, and the reign of King Zog added more in the 20th. Below the ridge lies the old town that UNESCO listed in 2005.

The prison is the part people remember. King Zog built it in 1932 from the stone of an old aqueduct, whose foundations survive, and it kept prisoners under the Italians, the Germans and the communists until 1968. Out in the open stands a US Lockheed T-33 jet that was forced down near Tirana in 1957, and the communist government kept it.

2 daysThe two-day itinerary puts the castle first on day one, before the heat and before the houses.Gjirokastër in 2 days →

The arms museum and the town museum

The arms museum shows weapons that the partisans took from the Italians and the Germans in the Second World War, together with photographs from the period. The exhibition is easy to read in a short visit, and it makes sense of the war years that the open-air exhibits only hint at.

At the entrance, on the ground floor, a town museum has panels in English for visitors who read no Albanian. Take it first, before you climb to the towers, and the rest of the ridge will make more sense.

When you are short on time

Cut the castle down and it still gives a lot back, even if you only have the time between two buses or one slow coffee. Four stops carry the visit, and the town below waits for you straight afterwards, with Zekate House on the same hill.

• The clock tower, for the shape of the fortress from above.
• The T-33 plane, for the story and the photograph.
• The view over the roofs of the town, grey slate roofs stacked down the hillside.
• The prison, for the three regimes that used it.

When to goThe weather page explains why summer needs the morning and what the ridge is like in November.The best time to visit Gjirokastër →