[Apr. 2024] On this day, I ate Albanian food for the first time.
We had lunch after visiting churches in Berat, a town that is a World Heritage Site.
Since almost all of meals are included in this tour, we were taken to a restaurant.
The restaurant was in a traditional building, and had a nice atmosphere, but I forgot to check the name of the restaurant.
It was a large restaurant that also runs a hotel.
This tour was an Italian tour, so I had high expectations for the food, but overall, we had a good meal at lunch and a disappointing meal at the hotels in the evening.
First, we were served salad.
Then we were served cheese and spinach pie.
This pie was apparently so popular that it was served almost every time we had a meal after that, so I looked it up and found out that it was called Borek.
After this, we were served a thick tomato-flavoured soup, and then the main course was moussaka.
I knew that moussaka was a Turkish dish, but since Albania was under Turkish rule for many years, it must have become a national dish.
Then a sweet dessert was served, and although everything was delicious, I couldn’t finish it all.
I drank a glass of red wine that was made here and aged for four years.
I remember it had a fairly strong flavour and was good.
It’s interesting to get to know the identities of your tour companions at these types of gatherings.
The man of the couple from Piedmont who sat next to my husband is a window maker and was in charge of the windows during the restoration of the Venaria Palace.
I also found out that the woman who was the most talkative was a doctor.
After the meal, we climbed up to the castle ruins at the top of the hill.
The castle was built before it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, and Turkish soldiers were used in its construction.
Because of their good work, a mosque was built for them in the corner of the castle, and part of the minaret still remains today.
From there, we walked down a little to a lookout point with a good view of the town below.
At the foot of the hill, on both sides of the Osum River, traditional houses were lined up, which was cute, but if you go a little further away, you can see the boring new town spreading out before you.
After enjoying the view, the scenery on the way back to where the bus was waiting was Tuscan-like, with abundant greenery, vineyards and olive groves.
