ALBANIAN FOOD in the CITY OF STONE!! Gjirokastër Tava + UNESCO Attractions | Gjirokastër, Albania

Jiricaster, you won my heart with this one. This is so freaking incredible. Good morning everyone. I hope you're all doing amazing. This is David Hoffman from David's Been here coming at you from beautiful Jiricaster, Albania. A UNESCO World Heritage City in the south, around 1 hour drive to Sirande, 4 hour drive to Tirana. This place is gorgeous. Beautiful old town with a bazaar, you have a castle on the top as you can see right there and I'm starting off with breakfast here at Hotel Argyro, the hotel I'm staying at. We have a massive breakfast. We have like 8 different things here. We have donuts, burek, we have cheese, fig marmalade, coffee and after this we're gonna go explore the castle, like a 90 minute tour and then we're gonna see all the bazaar. Souvenir shops, stone carving, wood carvings and then we're gonna have incredible Jiricaster lunch at a typical restaurant right there in the center. David, this city is so beautiful. You're gonna love it. It's my favorite city in Albania. And right here we're starting off with pispili, which is a pie with spinach, burek with cheese, this one's with spinach. So fluffy. It's almost like a quiche, right? And I was saying before, like this rooftop is just beautiful. Look at this. Old town over here, we have like an abandoned building to the left, we have a street to the right, we have like 8 different tables and this is on the second floor of the building. I'm staying in, you know, the first floor, the third and the fourth floor. And we just got some eggs. Eggs with some pork, right? Oh, what a beautiful morning. This bagel is phenomenal. Whoa. Next up, let's try their burek. Burek every single morning in Albania. This is super doughy. Wow. Incredible. Goat cheese, fluffy, not too salty. All right, guys, so this is the Albanian donut, the petula. What you should do, you should just get some of this delicious fig jam, marmalade. Oh, wow. It's sweet. And I thought this was gonna be like a super doughy donut. It's actually not. It's very hollow. So it's like basically a hollow ball. This is one thing that you're gonna eat a lot in the South. Petula. We've had it like every single morning. Every single morning. Mm-hmm. Gazur, bro. What a great breakfast. Yeah. Super. My boy here loves the petula. He eats that thing. He eats like 10 of these a day, at least. Right? Yeah. It's so good. I really do. All right, guys, I'm just gonna enjoy my breakfast and then we're gonna go to the castle. See you in one second. As soon as you walk outside, you have a little terrace and then right there is the bazaar. But we're going up to the castle first. Yeah. I'll see you later, bro. See you later. Where's my friend? Where'd he go? Hello, man. There he is. Yo, where are you? Hi, man. Let's go to the castle. Yeah, let's go to the castle. And this is the bazaar at 9 a.m. 9 a.m. It's pretty dead right now, obviously. People are still waking up, but there's some souvenir shops open. Like a few of them, actually. Not many people today, huh? They start coming later, but afternoon is like the most crowded time for this bazaar because it's not so hot. It's a perfect time to walk. Staying like one minute from the bazaar. Let's say 20 seconds. 20 seconds. There's like no better place to stay, bro. Okay, and then we make a left and go straight up. Okay, so we passed the bazaar and now we're making our way up the castle. Straight up this way? Okay, so there are two ways. In fact, you want to take the easy way, which is only walking, or you want to take the steps. But it's easier if we take this way because we can take it slowly. And in five minutes we'll be up in the castle. Okay, before getting up to the castle, we have to check this tunnel, which was a bunker. So, Albania, during the communist time, our former leader built a lot, a lot of bunkers. Around 200,000 bunkers. And this one here is one of them. You can't imagine, this Cold War tunnel we call, has 80 rooms inside. 80 rooms in this tunnel? Yeah. Right under the castle? And people didn't know about it until 1990s, when communism was finished. Because it was closed? It was closed. Inside there were rooms for sleeping, so food for one year, and everything they need to live for one year. I walked like 20 seconds in and it's super dark. It's cold though. It's nice. Oh my God. Oh, it never ends. Look at that. Hey, bro, this is crazy. Amazing. Alright, enough of the tunnel though. Let's go to the castle. On the way up, you have beautiful views over the whole city. Mountains. Gorgeous. The very top over there, that's the restaurant we went to yesterday. Restaurant Kurtula. Delicious food. And here's the bazaar. And slowly over there, I mean, it's basically, what, a five minute walk? Not that bad. Yeah, around five minutes. Slowly walk. And they open at what time? Nine? Nine o'clock. Entrance fee is 200 lek, which is around $2. So this mother, she sells many things here, like all collected from the village. She just let us grab some, and this is a fig. Look at this. Super fresh. Very fresh. Straight from her farm. Oh my God. So juicy. That was an amazing fig. I love this. On the way up, we stop, we have some fruit, continue. That's mountain tea. Mountain tea. Amazing. I gave her a hundred, which is like one US dollar. She let us try a bunch of figs, some blackberries, and she gave me some mountain tea. The best, right? The best. Albanian tea. Albanian tea, the best collected from the mountain. Wild tea, let's say. So we're almost at the entrance. As you can see, a bunch of vendors. This one's selling some tablecloth. Tablecloth, but all handmade. All handmade, yeah? Yeah. Beautiful. And this is the entrance. Wow, what a massive castle. Argyro Castle, which means Argyro Castle. Argyro is a legend about Argyro, which she sacrificed herself for her baby during the 15th century when the Ottomans arrived here. But we'll see the place where she jumped from the castle. So we're very lucky because today is Sunday, and Sundays in Albania you can enter most attractions for free. So we have this map, map of Argyro Castle, which can show very easy how to go and how to navigate inside the castle. So we are in the entrance over here. So we have the most beautiful area is from the left side, where we can see like Alipasa canals, which because this castle, the latest renovation has from Alipasa time, which was during the 18th century. So Alipasa was leading all this south part of Albania until Janina, Greece nowadays. So these are cannons from the Second World War, Italians and Germans. Yes. They brought them here. Yeah. And we're going to see one of the three tanks that survived, that still exists from Italian Fiat. Fiat company. Okay. Produces a very small tank. And we have one of three examples all over the world. This is the Italian Fiat L640. Dates back to 1940. Only three remain in the world. They produced 280. Check this out. I'm on top of it. You're allowed to do this. You can see inside. Man, the guy would be there, the gunner, just shooting. This is crazy, dude. And it's still like perfect. I mean, it's rusty, but wow. Let me get down from here. Look at this, guys. Crazy. He would look through this hole and then from there he would shoot. And then the way in, either from the top or from the side. Right? So, in this panoramic view, we have the best view of the city of Gjirokastra. So, here we can see the typical Gjirokastra houses, the bazaar. Everything we can see from here. Our hotel, which is where the flag is. This is incredible, bro. Incredible. What a view. Here in this garden terrace overlooking the city, we have a bunch of cannons. Now, what's the story behind these cannons? So, this cannon dates back to the 18th century when Ali Pasha was ruling this place of Albania up to Ioannina, Greece. But except these cannons, he also built a huge aqueduct bringing the water from the mountain here. About 12 kilometers aqueduct. And so he made this castle a living place, a safe place to live for many, many years. So, then he was killed by Ottomans and this castle changed the direction and everything. So, back in January 1958, this American aircraft came over and landed in Albania. It's two different sides of the story, it says here. The U.S. version is that he left from France, going to Naples, Italy, and then he got lost in fog and came here. Basically, he got lost and landed in Albania. But the communist version is that they forced him to land, sort of like they took down a spy. And now we're headed to the clock tower, right? Yeah, but before the clock tower, we have a very, very beautiful arena. A big square where every five years, as I mentioned before, we organize here the folklore festival, which is very important for Albanian tradition, not only inside the borders of Albania, but also outside Albanians living in Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Italy, everywhere. And this is a stage. Huge stage. Yes, because during the folklore dance, we have like 20 or 30 dancers dancing in front of people. Yeah, so everybody stands up there, drinking, eating, enjoying, and then here it is. And that's usually probably in the afternoon, right? Like before sunset? Yeah, it's usually nighttime. And this is the end of the castle, where the clock tower is. And this clock tower dates back to when? 20th century, built by Ali Pasha again. Here also we have an exit for walking, so for people, not for horses or whatever. And here also we have an interesting story, the legend of Margiro, which is very important for the castle. So she jumped from here? Yeah. What? No, I mean, that's it. You jump, you're done. I mean, it's a 40-foot drop until you hit rocks, but then you keep tumbling. So you wouldn't survive this. No, he didn't survive. What are you doing up here, bro? Wow. I mean, again, stunning views, and then the clock tower. I mean, this is the best spot to get photos of it. This is like perfect, dude. Incredible clock tower. All right, guys, so we explored Jiricaster Castle, the main monument of the city, overlooking the entire thing. As you walk through, you see cannons from World War II. You have a terrace overlooking the city, more cannons, the stage, clock tower, and then the legend at the very end, right? I mean, that is the entire grounds. You can spend more time if you want to. I suggest coming here right when it opens at 9 a.m., because now it's already 10, 15, 10.30, and it's getting really, really hot. After finishing the castle, now is the best part of the tour, the bazaar. So, here we'll see many handcraftsmen. So, they do a job that you've never seen it before. So, we'll start the first one, which is a man who works on the stones. Okay, so this guy only does stone. Right here, outside of his store, you have beautiful stone carvings. I love the one of Albania. Welcome, the fish, a lot of, like, stuff of Jesus. As you can hear, he's carving. Hello. Stone Albanian. Wow. This is really amazing. This guy is going all out on this welcome stone. Wow. Look at this. I mean, the tips of the stone are just flying in the air. You have to stand back a little bit. I love it. The stone, it says, welcome, and it has the two eagles. And here, you see, the top is, like, amazing. It's really, really incredible. Come here, buy a souvenir. This one's beautiful. This is, like, to the castle, this big stone to the castle. Love it, man. I love his dad. His dad was the real maestro of the stone carving because, you know, he was, like, the model of this profession. And, unfortunately, he passed away five months ago, so his son now has to continue that tradition because if he stops, means no more stone carving in this part of the city. Okay, so I was looking around. I really like, obviously, the flag of the country, the two eagles. This one's thin. I could put this, like, in my office. I mean, really, I would love a huge one, but I think it's going to be too much weight. They're really heavy. This one's light. This one's actually a little heavy. I'm taking this one for my boy, my assistant, Brandon. And, yeah, okay. So, 20 euros? He gave me a little discount. A little discount for me. Everything is so beautiful, man. Thank you. Amazing. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, after we saw the stone carving, so now we're going to see the wood carving, which is another specialty of Girocastro. Let's go and check inside. Here we can see the master of wood carving. So, he works like a physician, you know? He has to plan, to calculate everything. So, what he's carving right now is an old house. And it's, like, different, I guess, like, different levels, right? So, like, some parts are a little out. Some are way deeper into the wood. So, it's, like, different dimensions in a way. Similar to what these are, right? So, all of these, you can see, like, here, it's, like, super deep. He cuts all the way through. But then he carves out the castle. These are the best for me. I mean, I would take one of those. $6,000, so $60. Over here they have, I mean, they have lockets. They have, and he does it all just by hand. Right here, he just carves everything. This is the studio? Yeah. That's amazing. And then you can also buy names. I have to buy something here. And guess what? I found one of my daughter's names. He also has Sienna, my other daughter, but he has it with double N. So, what he's going to do is he's going to cut it. He's going to cut it and then, you know, move the A in. And he charges $1 per letter. So, right here, $6. And that would be $5, so $11. Beautiful gift. Look at this. My daughter's going to love it. I don't know what he's going to put it, like, maybe, like, on our desk or something. But, I mean, it's beautiful. This is, like, incredible, man. I mean, this is the one I really love. This one. Look at this one. That's the best. I'm going to put that right here. This guy is truly a master. Look at this. He just cut the N, the second N, off. He added the A. He glued it. And then he added, like, this beautiful design using this little torch right there. Wow, my friend. Look at this. It's perfect. That's it. Sienna's going to love it. I can't even believe this. All right, guys. So, I bought three things. I bought a double eagle, which you see behind. And I bought both my daughter's names. The names is $1 or $100, like, per letter. And then it's $2,000 for that one. If you want, you can get one of these. It's, like, $6,000. So, it's $60. But I spent $3,000 total, which is roughly $30. And this is what you need to do here. You have to come, support the locals, buy some stone, buy some wood. Hey. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll see you next time. Next time, big eagle. Huge eagle. What's crazy is that we haven't even made it down into the bazaar yet. This is just the beginning. It's just the beginning. Look at this. It's right here. The first three shops, so we stop in two of them. So, now we are going to check a shop which is new, coming from Albania, which means the name is Edua, which means I love. Every product is Albanian product, 100%. And this is the shop Edua. As you can see, it's all artisanal goods. Over here, we have some mountain tea. We have some oil. We have different liquors, marmalades. Over here, we have nonstop bottles of rakia, pure rakia, and they also have different fruit rakia. And over here, we have some wines. Keep going. I mean, just everything is artisanal, right? Oh, this is soap. Wow, nice. Pomegranate soap. Over here, we have more marmalade. So, what do I take? I don't know. I know what you want. I know you want some rakia. Some rakia? Yeah. I don't know, man. Look at this. This is amazing. Olive oil. So, the one thing we could do here is we could try some rakia. Yeah. Amazing. So, this is all made by the company, Edua. This is pure grape rakia. It's a strong one. I like it, though. It has a little bit of the barrel taste. You're really strong? You think it's strong? I mean, it was a little strong. Okay, guys. This one's made from cherries. Cherries. Oh, man. These are strong. Oh, yeah. I need some. Before lunch? Let's go. And they also have what I was really impressed with. It's like the soap. This is soap, huh? Yeah, artisanal soap. Artisanal soap. Traditional house. So, I'm buying some honey and some soap. $500 and $500. So, $1,010. This is great, though. This is for my mother-in-law. She loves honey. She wants some honey. From Albania. And this is for my wife because she loves soap. Stay clean. We finished up with three shops and now we are in the center of the bazaar. My hotel is right down this street. Here we have two of the beautiful houses. The most traditional ones, right? And they have been rebuilt because this place was renovated or, you know, restored about three years ago, right? Three years ago, they fixed everything up. They changed the floor. So, basically, all the stones are new. They cleaned them all up. They fixed all the houses. As you can see, beautiful houses. Love the windows on this one. It just, like, comes out. This is very traditional Ottoman style. Old school. Yeah. And then, what else do we have? Just more restaurants. Burek shops. More souvenir shops. So, we have a surprise. We're going to the top of this building. The six... What is that? Six sides? Is that what it's called? Six sides building? Yeah, they're restoring this building. So, a little bit of a disaster here, but it's great. The building is amazing. Even though it's under, like, restoration, it's still beautiful. Look at this. So, all the beams are brand new for the restoration. The roof as well. Yeah. It's all brand new. And also these, right? They changed it. And this is it, guys. I am on the terrace. It's a little tilted, a little unstable, but this is it. This is the old town, right? Bazaar right below us. This is smack center. Castle. Mosque. Beautiful. I love this place. One minute walk. From the center, you have bar, restaurant, hotel, Codra. And from here, incredible views, overlooking everything, and the castle. Yeah. Look at this. So, they have a beautiful terrace. In the castle, old town. Love the buildings here. This is the kitchen. Hello. Sabona. This is the big chef. The big chef. Yes. Where's the lamb? So, right now, the chef is preparing to cook something very, very traditional, Girocastro. And what's the name of the dish? The Tava of Girocastro. So, this is a chicken dish with red peppers, green peppers, onions. And then they're going to put it in the tava. So, first, they're going to put it here. They're going to pan fry it. And then he's going to put it in the tava, and he's going to bake it. So, he also added some garlic. Then he added the chicken. So, it's basically like a stir fry. It's a stir fry. He's putting different spices into it. It smells amazing. And over here, he's cutting up some tomatoes. This guy loves the fire. He loves the fire. It's, like, non-stop. It, like, hit me. The oil hit me. He just threw some herbs in there. And then he added some delicious goat cheese. That looks so bomb. This is going to go in the tava and then bake? Yeah. Oh, my God. And that's it, guys. So, basically, he heated up the tava in the oven. And then he added everything inside. And now it's ready because it's so hot that it's still cooking it. This dish looks delicious. Creamy. Oh, my God. The vegetables, the chicken. Okay. Let's eat. Cheers, my friend. Gazur. Can't wait to try tava. Tava of Gjirokastra. So good, Rafi. I'm sure, man. I'm in love with it. It's so good. Mmm. This is nice. No? Yeah. It's a little smoky, too. Perfect. And here we go. We got the Gjirokastra tava. It looks so bomb. Like, so delicious. Oh, my God. It just looks so creamy and delicious. And next to it, we have a humongous salad. So it's like Parmesan cheese with some mushrooms, some cucumbers, spinach. I mean, so much goodness. I think we have to start with the salad. All right, my friends. Let's try this incredible salad. Looks so crunchy. Fresh. Oh, my favorite part. I already could tell. It's gonna be the mushrooms. Mm-hmm. Wow. Chopped salad. Nice balsamic on top. Oil. Here we go, guys. Love it. There's actually some raisins in here. It's a very fresh salad. It's, like, perfect to have right now. And one thing they were telling me is that here in Gjirokastra, usually people get, like, small. You know, they don't get, like, 20 plates. Like, tava style. They get, like, one like this, like the tava. And I sat next to it. That's it. I mean, it's a lot of food. And what I love about this restaurant, besides how good the food is, is the location. The view. Look at that, bro. Look at the castle right there. I love Albania. Look at this incredible creamy tava. I just can't wait. Tava time. Still hot. Oh, my God. Oh, bro, the herbs. Mm-hmm. This is the first time I'm trying a chicken tava. But I gotta say, the creaminess of this, the herbs, they just bring out so much flavor. Mm-hmm. It reminds me of, like, a creamy pasta. Obviously, no pasta, but just, like, the creaminess of it. Very similar. Mm. Almost like a thick whipping cream. Jirikastur, you won my heart with this one. This is so freaking incredible. This is the first time I tried chicken tava. And it's the best. Get the bread. So, it's basically like a mini focaccia. And you put the tava on top. Mm. Everything is too delicious. It's mouthwatering. Gazur. This is the best tava in Albania. The best tava. So, David, this is the traditional dessert, Josaf, which is made with sheep milk and the juice of fig, which is similar to milk. So, they put it together in a temperature of 100 degrees. Let's dive into this Josaf. Oh, man. As soon as I break into it, it's, like, it's thick, super thick. It reminds me of the panna cotta style, but on the bottom you have the figs. Mm. Creamy. The cinnamon. The fig. This is, like, my new favorite dessert, bro. Can't get enough of it. I'm not a huge dessert person, but for this, all day. All right, guys. We have one last stop here in the old town. We're going to an 18th century home to see how life used to be. They're going to show us, basically, the different levels. Like, three different floors, right? Yeah. Bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom, everything. And this is it. The Skanduli house. Beautiful stone building. The windows, the roof, everything is really, really authentic. Obviously, this dates back almost 200 years. Let's go inside and learn more about it. Okay, so we're about to enter the house, and where we're standing right now is the courtyard, right? So, we have the courtyard, vines here, and this first level was where the family would cook. They would cook, and they would also cook for themselves and for their animals, domestic animals, right? And then second floor is for their winter, right? Winter room and summer room. Winter room, and then the top one is summer room, right? Yeah. Perfect. So, what we're going to do now is we're going to walk through, see some of the different rooms. As soon as we walked in the first level, we went to the left, and here, this is a storage room. What's really interesting is over here, this is made out of chestnut wood, and the reason for this is because it helps fight earthquakes. Look at this, old stones. Storage, right? They're still storing stuff today. We had many bunkers in Albania, but this bunker was built before we had it around Albania. So, this in case of any earthquake, this is the only house that has a bunker that can protect from these bombs around. And this next room is a natural refrigerator. So, this is where they would store all their food. Next to it, besides that wall, is the storage, the water storage tank. So, the water tank was behind to cool the room that we saw as a fridge, and also, it serves here for water, what they need to wash the plates, the dishes. I don't know. We just came up here to the second floor, and here we have the winter room. This is the living room, right? So, we have a couch, huge rug, and over here, as you can see, these aren't really windows. This is to fight invaders. So, anybody's coming in, shoot the arrow. Same thing here. No, that's not that. But here you have another one, and there you have another one. And this next room is the kitchen. Pretty simple kitchen, right? So, they do the fire, make some coffee. Here, they have the water. Let's go to the next room. And this last room is the bedroom. As you can see, right now, they obviously have, like, modern beds. But back then, they didn't have this. They just had something on the floor, like, you know, not a mattress, but more just, like, rugs. Lots of rugs and pillows. Over here, another fireplace. There's nine inside the house. Nine beautiful fireplaces. I love the architecture of the fireplace. And then we're going to go upstairs, now, to the last floor. Is the summer residences, right? So, they sleep downstairs and live downstairs on the second floor when it was winter. But now it's summer. Summer right now. This is perfect. The wind comes in. Look at the view. Open. Open air. Yeah. That's amazing. So, basically, the air comes in, and this is natural air conditioning for them. Amazing. They see a little relaxing area. Veranda. And over here, we have a few different living rooms and some bedrooms. Amazing, amazing house, guys. This place is beautiful. We went through all three levels. Saw it all. Just an incredible, you know, piece of history. It's still alive today. This is awesome. I can't even believe it's still here. It's, like, perfect condition. Today, guys, we explored all of Casta. We started off at my hotel, Argyro Hotel. Argyro Hotel. We had a delicious breakfast. From there, you have awesome views of the castle. Also, the old town. Everything was super good. Bazaar. I love the Petula. Petula's the best. Petula with some of the figs. Oh, so good. And after that, we walked all the way up to the castle. Saw the castle. Walked through the whole thing from the clock tower. You see the cannons. You see where the legend is of Argyro. Same thing, right? And then, after that, we went down into the bazaar. Saw so many different types of art. Just another goods, right? So, we saw the stone carving. We saw the wood carving. We tried some rakia at the... Edua. And after that, we walked through the whole bazaar. And all the way up to lunch at restaurant... Kodra. The best. The best chicken... Chicken dish. ...dish... That's true. ...ever. I mean, the tawa was absolutely phenomenal. We saw how he made it. We got the view. We had some rakia with it as well. And you have to definitely soak it up with that bread. Oh, so good. And what's over here? For the house. And that's it, guys. So, when you come to Jiricaster, do everything we did. You will love it here. Take at least one day to explore. It's a UNESCO World Heritage City. And it's a must visit when you go to Albania. And guys, if you love this video, give me a thumbs up. Leave a comment below. Subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. See you in the next Travel Food Adventure in Albania. Let's go.