Argyrókastro

Argyrókastro, known in Albanian as Gjirokastër, rises on a hillside above the Drino valley. Its name means the Silver Castle, and the fortress on the ridge formed the heart of the town. Houses spread over the slopes around it, their stone walls and roofs giving the settlement its distinctive appearance. The bazaar grew outside the castle's northern gate in the fifteenth century.

The Ottomans took the town in the early fifteenth century, and by 1471 it was an administrative centre of the Ottoman province of Albania. When Evliya Çelebi visited in 1670, he counted houses inside the fortress and in neighbourhoods extending over the surrounding hills. In 1811 the town came under Ali Pasha of Tepelenë. He enlarged the fortress, adding a clock tower and an extension to its defences, before his downfall in 1822.