The Libohova Castle (Kalaja e Libohovës) overlooks the town of Libohovë, offering panoramic views of the Drino Valley and slopes of the Bureto Mountain. It was built at the end of the 18th century by the Ottoman ruler Ali Pasha of Tepelenë as a wedding gift to his sister Shanishe. The fortress located near Gjirokastër is now empty.
The castle has a rectangular shape of 70 x 80 meters, with three polygonal corner towers and one irregular-shaped bastion in the fourth corner. Its walls are up to 1,40 meters wide. In the centre of the castle is a small concrete underground bunker. An entrance is signposted but is oddly situated in someone’s garden. The fortress is free to enter.
Libohovë once had 15,000 residents and belonged to the most important towns in what is today south Albania, but it is now a village with just 2,000 people. The town owed its former prosperity to the skilful marriage policy of the local Libohova family, who was related by blood to Ali Pasha of Tepelenë, who ruled the area de facto independently of the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The centre of Libohovë is a pleasant boulevard, with a five-hundred-year-old plane tree at its southern end.
You can take a hike from the town to the Byzantine church in Labova e Kryqit or the Bektashi tekke in Melan. It is a 6 km leisure walk to both of the locations.
Libohovë can be reached by public transport, there are several buses a day from Gjirokastër.
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