Berat is called the town of a thousand windows, and for once the nickname is just. Ottoman-era white houses climb the hillside above the River Osum in tiers, their tall windows stacked like the faces of a theatre. On the north bank, the Mangalem quarter rises to a fortress, the Kala, whose walls still enclose a living neighbourhood, with families, churches and small cafes inside; on the south bank, Gorica faces it across a stone bridge. UNESCO inscribed the old town with Gjirokastër in 2008, and it is among the most attractive in the Balkans.
The valley around is a wide, farmed plain with olive groves, vineyards and the backdrop of Mount Tomorr, which rises beyond to more than 2,400 metres and is sacred to the Bektashi, a Sufi order who make a pilgrimage up the mountain in August. Inside the castle, the museum dedicated to the icon painter Onufri holds some of the finest religious painting in Albania, and the churches have more frescoes than you would guess from the street. The old riverfront has been repaved, and in the evening the whole town goes out for a stroll, called the xhiro.
Riding here asks for attention. Albanian roads have improved enormously, but surfaces can be broken, with potholes, rough patches and gravel at the edges, and drivers pass on blind bends, so give everybody room. Livestock turns up in the middle of the road without warning, and the best defence is to slow down in villages and cut your speed after dusk. The back road toward Tepelenë crosses dry hills and river gorges, and in the Osum canyon region further east the rock walls close in dramatically. Spring, when the hills are green and the rivers run, and early autumn are the best seasons. Summer afternoons are hot.
Berat is a proper town, with almost forty-seven thousand people, so fuel is straightforward and so is food, with byrek, grilled meat, local wine and raki on offer in the old quarters. Nearby Kuçovë, once an oil town renamed Qyteti Stalin in the communist period, shows another side of the country. Park at the bottom of the old town and walk up, because the cobbled lanes were not made for a loaded bike.