Gjirokastër
Albania
A city of stone roofs on a mountainside, a fortress with a captured plane on the wall, and the birthplace of a dictator and a novelist
Photo by Adventure Albania on Unsplash
Photos by Adventure Albania, Albina Shehetila, Fabian Kühne and Drini Teta on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Albania
April to June, and September to October (summer afternoons are hot and the stone holds it)
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 180mm in Nov
Where it is
40.08°N, 20.14°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Walk the castle walls in the morning light
- Go through the Cold War tunnel
- Climb into the Zekate house for the ceilings
- Eat qifqi in the bazaar
- Drive to the Blue Eye and Sarandë for the afternoon
Gjirokastër travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Albania
Good valueLek, and prices are often quoted in euros to visitors — pay in lek, the euro price is rounded against you. Exchange booths (këmbim valutor) in any town give a fair rate with no commission and beat the banks; skip the airport counter.
ATMs & cards
Cards work in Tirana and the bigger hotels and not much else — carry cash. Use BKT, Raiffeisen, Credins or Intesa Sanpaolo machines and decline the conversion; the standalone machines in the tourist streets charge a flat fee.
Avoid these
- the standalone machines in the tourist streets, which charge a flat fee
- any machine offering to charge you in euros
Use these instead
- BKT
- Raiffeisen
- Credins
- Intesa Sanpaolo
Cards work in Tirana and the bigger hotels and not much else; carry lek. The exchange booths are honest and beat the banks.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Albania
Very safeVery comfortable, and quiet after ten. The cobbles are polished glass when wet and the streets are steep; that is the whole safety briefing. The Greek border road south is fine; the mountain roads east are for daylight.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (5 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the cobbles in the rain — polished stone on a steep hill; good shoes
- the mountain roads east towards Përmet after dark — unlit, unfenced and slow
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Albania visa rules
No visa neededup to 90 days
Ninety days in any 180. Albania also admits, without a visa, anyone holding a valid multiple-entry Schengen, US or UK visa — which covers many nationalities not on the list.
Other passports
e-Visa requiredup to 90 days
Applied for online at e-visa.al.
How to get it: Most visitors need nothing. If you do, the e-visa portal takes a few days; the embassy route is only for the nationalities the portal excludes.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Albania
LimitedRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Hepatitis A
- Tetanus up to date
- Rabies for a long or rural stay — stray dogs are common
Getting treated
Private clinics in Tirana are good and used to foreigners; the public hospitals are basic and outside the capital care thins fast. Anything serious means Tirana or a flight out, so insurance with evacuation cover matters here.
Do not drink the tap water outside Tirana, where it is safe; bottled elsewhere. The heat inland in high summer and the driving are what actually send visitors to a clinic. Ticks in the mountains in early summer.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodQifqi — rice balls fried with mint and egg — exist nowhere else and every restaurant in the bazaar does them. The tavernas up the bazaar streets are family-run and cheap; the view terraces charge for the view. Local raki and the mountain honey are the things to take home.
Getting around
Limited- Speed TaxiWorks here
- Merr TaxiWorks here
- UberNot here
- BoltNot here
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Tirane — 6 hours ahead of you
2 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–11:00 your time, 15:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 03:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 03:00–11:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Albania
Why these are Albania's numbers and not Gjirokastër's
Home broadband — Fair. Video calls and streaming for one or two people — fine for a holiday, thin for a household working. Broadband here runs at 71% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Good. Maps, calls and streaming, and enough to tether a laptop for an afternoon. Mobile runs at 1.2× the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Gjirokastër, so these are medians for all of Albania. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Albania, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Albanian
- HelloPërshëndetjepur-shun-DET-yeh
- PleaseJu lutemyoo LOO-tem
- Thank youFaleminderitfah-leh-min-DEH-rit
- Yes / NoPo / Jopo / yo
5 more phrases
- Excuse meMë falnimuh FAHL-nee
- How much is it?Sa kushton?sah koosh-TON
- CheersGëzuarguh-ZOO-ar
- DeliciousShumë e shijshmeSHOO-muh eh SHEESH-meh
- GoodbyeMirupafshimmee-roo-PAF-sheem
Related to nothing else in Europe. Italian is widely understood on the coast and among the older generation; English is good among the young. Two things to know: a nod means no, a shake of the head means yes.
Religion
Muslim majority, with Orthodox and Catholic minorities — and one of the most secular societies in Europe
Around half Muslim, mostly Sunni with a large Bektashi Sufi community whose world centre is in Tirana, a fifth Orthodox, a tenth Catholic, and nobody much minds which. Religion was banned outright from 1967 to 1990 and it shows: mosques and churches sit side by side and are visited by everybody. Cover shoulders in either; shoes off in a mosque.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Accept the coffee — an invitation to sit is the hospitality, and it costs a hundred lek
- Join the xhiro, the evening walk, which is how a town meets itself
- Learn that a nod means no and a shake of the head means yes; it will save a meal
- Take shoes off at the door of a home, and bring something small if invited
Don't
- Do not mistake the old regime for a joke topic; people lived it and the bunkers are still there
- Do not haggle in shops, though the markets expect it
- Do not photograph people at the mosques or the churches without asking
- Do not drive as the locals do; the crash rate is why they warn you
Where to stay in Gjirokastër
No Holistay rentals in Gjirokastër yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Gjirokastër on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Tirana International TIA
3h 30mfrom the airport· 230 km as the crow flies
3h 30 by road; the furgon from the capital or a hire car.
Also worth pricing: Corfu, Greece CFU — the ferry to Sarandë then an hour by road; often quicker.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
