Porto Palermo Castle

Porto Palermo Castle, locally known as Kalaja e Porto Palermos, lies between the villages of Himarë and Qeparo, in the county of Vlorë in Albania.

The consensus is that the castle was built in 1804 by Ali Pasha of Ioannina, who was an Albanian ruler who ruled as a very autonomous and quasi-independent Ottoman pasha. Although some sources say he only rebuilt an earlier fortification, maybe from Venetian origin. Legend has it that it was built with the help of French military engineers, who were killed by Ali Pasha right after its completion.

Porto Palermo Castle was built upon an island in the Porto Palermo Bay. The bay was already used in Antiquity for its anchorage and called "Panorma Bay". The castle-island originally lay some 30 meters from the mainland, but later a narrow isthmus was created between the island and the mainland to facilitate easier communication. The castle has a triangular plan with large bastions at its corners. The interior was used to house a garrison, and there was a prison in the northeast bastion. It was still actively used during World War II and Albania's communist era.

Porto Palermo Castle can be visited for a small fee. Its interior is like a maze of rooms and hallways. I loved exploring every corner of it. A must-see if you are in the area, in my opinion. North of the castle, on the bay shore, there is an abandoned submarine base, called the Porto Palermo Tunnel, dating back to the 1960s and 1980s, when Albania was a communist state.

Gallery