Gjirokastër Castle — Controlling the Drino Valley
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Transcript
The castle dominates Gjirokastër because the valley mattered long before tourism did. Routes through the Drino corridor connected southern Albania with Epirus and the wider Balkans. A fortified height could supervise movement, taxation and defense. The site has medieval origins and was substantially strengthened under Ottoman rule, including work associated with Ali Pasha of Tepelena in the early nineteenth century. The enormous enclosure contains more than walls: military spaces, prisons, water systems and later layers of national memory all accumulated here. UNESCO’s description of Gjirokastër begins with the citadel for good reason. The houses below belonged to powerful families, but the fortress represented authority on a different scale—the state above the town.