There are three major neighborhoods in Berat; Kala, Mangalemi, and Gorica. The Kala neighborhood is actually within the fortress up on the hill. You may recall Jampi, The Sweetest Dog of Berat, walked us halfway up to the fortress about ten days ago. Our hotel is on Bulevardi Republika in the Mangalemi neighborhood which is the busiest one. The Gorica neighborhood is across the Ozumi River.

We walked around the Gorica neighborhood yesterday. A donkey and his handler were traveling along the old cobblestone paths making deliveries. If it were a drug mule the cobblestone street value of those sacks would be ass-tronomical. I would volunteer to help them if that meant I got to knock on some of the doors using their cool door knockers.

Berat has two nicknames: The City of a Thousand Windows and The White City. As you see in the photos, all the houses are painted white. That was why I was so pleasantly surprised to see patches of beautiful blue paint in between umpteen layers of white paint. I would really love to time travel to a colorful Berat of bygone centuries.

Byrek, like grandma used to make

We had dinner at Antigoni as suggested by our hotel waiter, Grigor. He strongly recommended the Byrek (Burek). It’s a pie made with layers and layers of thin pastry dough with either spinach or cheese in the middle. Grigor said Antigoni makes their Burek just like his grandmother used to make it in the village. It was delicious. The highlights of the dinner were grilled vegetables and, of course, cats.

We brought some Burek back for Grigor and the other waiter at our hotel, Ermal. I’m glad we did because Grigor was actually out sick for the first half of the day. It’s no medicine, but at least it was something he had said was delicious. He told us that when his grandmother was dying, he said to her that he knew he will never taste anything as good as her cooking again.

P.S. I just realized that most of the panoramic photos taken yesterday were actually of the Mangalemi neighborhood because they were taken while we were in the Gorica neighborhood across the river. Oops!

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