The fortress of Gijrokastra is located in the Drinos river valley in the southern Albania. The fort is situated on the pick of a hill, 300 meters high. The first historical witnesses about the presence of the fortress date back to the 1336, when the site is mentioned as Argyropolihne. This toponym derives from the legend of the princess Argyro, probably died falling down from the castle. The fortification, originally built by Byzantines, was subsequently controlled and modified over the centuries by different civilizations such as Ostrogoths and Normans. In this period, the city developed around the castle was known as Argyropolis, in Greek silver city, or Argyrokastron, i.e. silver castle.

During the Ottoman domination, established since the 1417, the fortress was deeply transformed and renovated, at first by the Sultan Bayezid and secondly under the king Ali Pasha of Telepena, who rebuilt all the curtain walls and erected a new aqueduct, as well as a clock tower.

In the first decades of the 1900th, after the liberation of Albania from the Ottoman domination, the castle of Gijrokaster was converted to a prison by the hand of the King Zog, with the addiction of several cells used for the imprisoning the rebels. The fortress, conquered by Italians during the world wars, obtained the status of “museum-city” in the communist regime, because birthplaces of the dictator Enver Hoxha.

Finally, in 2005, the historical centre of Gijrokastra, together with the site of Berat, became a World Heritage Site listed by UNESCO, as “rare example of an architectural character typical of the Ottoman period” and today it represents a national monument, as well as a museum on the local history of the II World War.