What a fabulous day. Defrim was our guide for our trip to Berat. I feel lucky for this as he was very knowledgeable, so much information I learnt . Berat is beautiful and it takes some time to walk around the castle and it is hot, so it might not be for everyone. I recommend if you do visit the castle to wear grippy shoes/trainers/ sandals as the ground is lovely marble cobblestone, which has been polished by years of walking making it slippy. The views are lovely all the way from Tirana to Berat, with all the olive trees and vines it looks a little like Tuscany. Defrim was an excellent host, stopping to allow us to take photos whenever we wanted and ready with an answer to any questions we had. His lunch recommendation was superb and I would like the food we had there again and again. Homecooked by the grandmother and Mother of the waiter. We headed to the vineyard for winetasting. This was a very speedy process. The cheeses, olives and sparkling wine are best. Defrim I thank you.

This is a long day trip, but worth it if you want to tick these locations off your list. Butrint is an interesting place with Roman.Greek, and Byzantine ruins to explore. Gjirokaster is also a nice city, but the portion you walk through is entirely populated with identical souvenir shops. I think they could easily drop Saranda from this trip as it holds no value other than being a beach resort. I'd rather have had more time at the other places. Our guide was friendly, knowledgeable and flexible.

Very part of museum and all the places around the temple are fascinating, very beautiful. You could do a lot of special photos there.

Wonderful cooking class with Marieta, learning about, and making, Gjirokaster dishes. Marieta is very skilled and lovely to be around, and the setting is stunning - the class is outdoors on her amazing terrace with a panoramic view of the town, surrounded by greenery and birdsong. And of course we got to eat the food - it was such a delight to sit at her beautifully decorated table and all eat lunch together. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in cooking or just wanting to learn a little more about Albanian life in a beautiful family setting.

Gesti was my guide for the thermal waters tour and it was great! This location is absolutely stunning and there are six thermal baths in total. It was a about 6 hours in total and he even took me to a great lunch spot along the way