Burrel

Burrel is the administrative centre of Mat and an ideal starting point for exploring this little-visited region. There’s a history museum, the statue of Albania’s only king, Zog I, and the pleasant Queen Geraldine Park.

The History Museum of Mat is only open on weekday mornings. Here, you can see the machine for producing gunpowder, which was manufactured here until 1939, when the Italian occupiers, fearing the resistance, dismantled it. The late communist-era building itself is quite monumental and is meant to resemble a traditional Albanian fortified kulla house. Lovers of socialist realism will appreciate the murals in the main hall.

The Statue of King Zog I stands in the middle of the roundabout in the centre of the town. A few dozen metres away is the newly renovated Park of Queen Geraldine – Zog’s spouse, who was half Hungarian and American. There are several rare trees in the park, which provide shade for a pleasant moment of relaxation.

The journey from Tirana to Mat has been halved with the completion of the Rruga e Arbërit road. It takes just over an hour now. Burrel itself is a few kilometres off the main road, and bus services, which used to run roughly every hour, have been cut.

With an off-road car, the surrounding Lurë-Mali i Dejës National Park or Qafë Shtamë Nature Park can easily be reached from Burrel.

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