Pasha’s Palaces

Berat Castle (Kalaja e Beratit) crowns a rocky hill above the Osum. Its walls, about 1,400 m long with 24 towers, date mainly from the 13th century, yet the Kala quarter inside is still lived in, among Byzantine churches and the Onufri Museum. UNESCO-listed since 2008, as an extension of Gjirokastër’s 2005 site.

Opened in 1986 inside Berat Castle’s Cathedral of the Dormition (1797), the Onufri Iconographic Museum shows icons and church objects from the 14th to the 20th century. It is named after the 16th-century painter Onufri, famed for his red, and also has work by his son Nikolla, David Selenica and the Çetiri family.

Ura e Goricës (Gorica Bridge) goes back to 1777, when Ahmet Kurt Pasha replaced an older wooden crossing; repaired after the 1880 floods, it crosses the Osum on stone arches to the Gorica quarter. Every 6 January a cross is thrown into the river here.

Tabja is a fortified tower in the walls of Kalaja e Beratit (Berat Castle), named after an Ottoman term for a structure built purely for defence. From the top, the Osum and Ura e Goricës (Gorica Bridge) come into view, so visitors stop here for photos.

The Muzeu Etnografik (Ethnographic Museum) occupies an 18th-century Berat house with a courtyard and çardak (covered veranda), and holds some 1,400 objects. The ground floor recreates the old bazaar with craft tools; upstairs are the guest and family rooms.

Muzeu Solomon was founded in 2018 by Professor Simon Vrusho and is devoted to the history of Berat’s Jewish community. Photographs, documents, personal items and testimonies tell how Jewish families found shelter here in the Second World War.