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Roots Earth in Gjirokastra: audio stories about 15 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 15 places in Gjirokastra, Albania, in Europe. The Gjirokastra stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Gjirokastra, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 15 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates and their local names. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: gjirokastra.md

The 15 places in Gjirokastra with audio stories

In the order the app shows them, with the local name after the English one where the catalogue carries one.

  1. Kadare House (Shtëpia e Kadaresë)
  2. Old Bazaar (Pazari i Vjetër)
  3. Cold War Tunnel (Tuneli i Luftës së Ftohtë)
  4. Bazaar Mosque (Xhamia e Pazarit)
  5. Skenduli House (Shtëpia e Skëndulatëve)
  6. Gjirokastra Ethnographic Museum (Muzeu Etnografik i Gjirokastrës)
  7. Gjirokastra Castle (Kalaja e Gjirokastrës)
  8. National Weapons Museum (Muzeu Kombëtar i Armëve)
  9. Gjirokastra Memorial Museum (Muzeu Memorial i Gjirokastrës)
  10. Zekate House (Shtëpia e Zekatëve)
  11. Obelisk of Education (Obelisku i Edukimit)
  12. Meçite Church (Kisha e Meçites)
  13. Viroi Lake (Liqeni i Viroit)
  14. Antigonea
  15. Labova e Kryqit

Is there an audio guide for Kadare House?

Yes. Kadare House has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 15 Gjirokastra places in the app, at 40.0761754, 20.1362659. Every one of the other 14 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Gjirokastra

Open Roots Earth and choose Gjirokastra. The city has its own map of places with all 15 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 15 places in Gjirokastra, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 15 places in Gjirokastra, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Kadare House

Local name
Shtëpia e Kadaresë
Coordinates
40.0761754, 20.1362659
In one line
The house where Ismail Kadare was born in 1936, the writer who carried Albanian literature out into the world. After the fire of 1999 it was rebuilt according to the author's descriptions sent from Paris and opened as a museum in 2018.

2. Old Bazaar

Local name
Pazari i Vjetër
Coordinates
40.0742447, 20.1385205
In one line
The Ottoman commercial heart of Gjirokastër, with cobblestones, white limestone walls and black slate roofs, rebuilt after the fire of the nineteenth century. Today part of the UNESCO World Heritage, where local crafts coexist with the layers of the city's history.

3. Cold War Tunnel

Local name
Tuneli i Luftës së Ftohtë
Coordinates
40.07469, 20.1398934
In one line
An underground shelter built by Enver Hoxha's regime in the 1970s, with 59 rooms and around 800 metres of corridors, for 300 people in the event of a nuclear attack. Opened as a museum in 2014, it bears witness to the paranoia of a regime that awaited an apocalypse that never came.

4. Bazaar Mosque

Local name
Xhamia e Pazarit
Coordinates
40.073889, 20.138056
In one line
Built by Memi Bey in the mid-18th century in the heart of the Bazaar, this is the only mosque in Gjirokastër that survived the atheist campaign of 1967, passing, over the 24 years it was closed, from warehouse to circus gym to tailoring workshop. After TIKA's restoration, the call to prayer is heard again 5 times a day.

5. Skenduli House

Local name
Shtëpia e Skëndulatëve
Coordinates
40.0751993, 20.1353572
In one line
A Gjirokastër tower-house with foundations dating to the early 18th century and its grand form to the first quarter of the 19th century, with 12 rooms, carved wooden ceilings, and secret tunnels, today a private museum run by the descendants of the Skenduli family.

6. Gjirokastra Ethnographic Museum

Local name
Muzeu Etnografik i Gjirokastrës
Coordinates
40.07555556, 20.13472222
In one line
Built between 1964 and 1966 on the plot where Enver Hoxha was born, after the 1916 fire that destroyed the original house. It functioned as the Antifascist Museum until 1991, when it reopened as the Ethnographic Museum with a collection of traditional Gjirokastër life.

7. Gjirokastra Castle

Local name
Kalaja e Gjirokastrës
Coordinates
40.074, 20.141
In one line
The second-largest castle in the Balkans, with early ancient roots whose dating remains disputed, and its present form given by Ali Pasha of Tepelena between 1812 and 1821. Today it holds the National Armaments Museum, the American T-33 aircraft from 1957, and the amphitheatre of the National Folklore Festival.

8. National Weapons Museum

Local name
Muzeu Kombëtar i Armëve
Coordinates
40.073232, 20.140008
In one line
Opened in 1971 in the cells of Zog's prison inside the Castle, it covers mainly the period from the 1912 independence to the end of the Second World War. In the courtyard stands the American Lockheed T-33A aircraft forced to land at Rinas on 23 December 1957.

9. Gjirokastra Memorial Museum

Local name
Muzeu Memorial i Gjirokastrës
Coordinates
40.07452, 20.13942
In one line
Opened during the communist period within the walls of the Castle, this museum is dedicated to the antifascist resistance of the south and tells the story of Bule Naipi and Persefoni Kokëdhima, two young partisans publicly hanged by the Germans in July 1944 in Çerçiz Topulli Square.

10. Zekate House

Local name
Shtëpia e Zekatëve
Coordinates
40.0748, 20.1323
In one line
A masterpiece of southern Albanian architecture, built between 1811 and 1812 by Beqir Zeko, the local general administrator of Ali Pasha of Tepelena. With two twin towers, a double entrance arch and gilded ceilings, today managed by the descendants after the return of ownership.

11. Obelisk of Education

Local name
Obelisku i Edukimit
Coordinates
40.07444444, 20.13805556
In one line
A monument of 124 stone blocks brought from Progonat, seven metres tall, raised to honour the teachers of Liria, the first Albanian school, opened in Gjirokastër in 1908. The work of the sculptors Dhrami, Kostaqi and Papamihali, proclaimed Honour of the City in 2008.

12. Meçite Church

Local name
Kisha e Meçites
Coordinates
40.076122, 20.140279
In one line
An Orthodox church in the Mëçitë quarter, built in 1784 with a modest facade to respect the Ottoman rules. One of the few temples that survived the atheist campaign of 1967 in the city where Enver Hoxha was born, today returned to worship after a restoration carried out between 1993 and 1995.

13. Viroi Lake

Local name
Liqeni i Viroit
Coordinates
40.1004119, 20.1234016
In one line
An artificial lake of about 17 hectares, 3 kilometres north of the city, created in the 1950s and declared a natural monument in 1982. Beneath its surface lies a 279-metre karst cave, discovered on 23 July 2016 by the Polish diver Krzysztof Starnawski.

14. Antigonea

Coordinates
40.087299, 20.222267
In one line
A Hellenistic city founded around 295 BCE by King Pyrrhus of Epirus in honour of his wife Antigone. Destroyed by the Romans in 167 BCE and abandoned forever, its identity was confirmed through the excavations of the archaeologist Dhimosten Budina.

15. Labova e Kryqit

Coordinates
40.07388889, 20.28916667
In one line
The Church of the Dormition of Saint Mary, one of the oldest in Albania, with a cross-in-square plan and nine layers of Byzantine frescoes. Its foundation is attributed to Emperor Justinian in the year 551; the silver cross he donated, which held a fragment of the wood of the True Cross, was stolen in 1989.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

Roots Earth for Android is available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app.