Berat Hotels

Mangalemi Hotel: The best place inside the town, I think

On the plus side (in no particular order)

the people here are friendly and helpful, and the son speaks good English

you can book by phone. If the landline doesn’t work try the mobile. And unlike some places the booking works – i.e. they’re expecting you when you arrive

there’s a computer you can use (for a small charge) to read your email

the building is old (if that’s important to you) and made of stone (ditto), like most of the other buildings in that part of Berat, and they’ve got a terrace where you can eat outside, if you’re the sort who enjoys that sort of thing. You can also sit inside

the prices for rooms are very reasonable

the position’s perfect for practically everything you might need or want to see in Berat – everything in the old town, and the post office, the bus station, the art gallery, etc in the new town

On the minus side, though

when I was there (in September), the water in the shower was at best lukewarm. (It came from solar panels, I think, and it may be different at other times of the year)

breakfast was dismal

the seats in the bar-cum-restaurant were cripplingly uncomfortable

one of the waiters hustles you (or he hustled me) to let him take you on a guided tour of the old town. I don’t think the owners know he does it. In any case he shouldn’t.

Otherwise

on one side the hotel looks out over a school. That means that in the morning, while you are perhaps still in bed, you may hear children playing in the courtyard, or a cracked old lesson bell ringing about fifty yards away,. My own feeling is that I like it, that’s life, it’s a happy sound (the children obviously like their PE teacher, incidentally, and he clearly has a gift for teaching), and if you’re going to complain you’d better go somewhere else, such as the top of Ben Nevis.

(By the way, I hear there’s a plan afoot to close the school and to use the area where is it to “recreate” the original palace gardens. If so then I hope it fails. I’d far rather have the children, with the lady sitting in the still-magnificent old palace gateway selling them sweets, than yet another blasted “archaeological park”.)

Unique Quality: The best there is, I think, if you want to stay IN the town.