In Gjirokaster, Albania, we chose to stay at Stone Rooms 1850 because it’s only a five-minute walk from the guesthouse to the castle. That also meant it’s way up on the hill because that’s usually where a castle was built. That didn’t dawn on us until after we had our first dinner with a few glasses of wine.

Climbing up the stairs every evening that week was not fun, but definitely worth it. The host family was really nice, so it was definitely a huge disappointment to go from them to the rat house guy in Berat. The guesthouse was beautiful, nicely upgraded and super clean. The daughter mops every inch every morning. The roof over the room next to ours did leak, but that was because of a big storm not seen in a decade. The afternoon we arrived, the host was crushing grapes from their garden to make wine.

The view from our upstairs room was magnificent. The family lives downstairs. We really enjoyed our breakfasts there. We had to let them know the night before if we wanted for breakfast. The neighbor’s cat, who was still nursing, loved hanging out with us, or she was simply avoiding her crying kittens. Too bad we didn’t see her after the fifth day. Perhaps she found more interesting guests at another guesthouse. We left a bag of cat food for her.

Map of Places Visited