Berat is one of Albania’s oldest cities and arguably one of the best-preserved Ottoman settlements in all of the Balkans. Thankfully untouched by bleak communist urban planning after being designated a ‘museum city’ in 1976, Berat is a historical gem and one of the country’s most iconic sights and certainly somewhere not to miss on a holiday to Albania.
Attractive white houses wind their way up to the famous hilltop citadel, whose walls encircle a smattering of medieval orthodox churches and ruined mosques as well as a superb ethnographic museum.
Housed in one of the churches is the excellent Onufri museum which contains a wonderful collection of Albanian icons.