Rozafa Castle

Feel the stone under your shoes. It is uneven, polished smooth in places by centuries of feet, and rough where the weather has worked on it. Up here the wind comes off the water and carries the smell of grass and damp rock. Below you, three bodies of water meet. Somewhere in the town, a call to prayer may be drifting up the hill. Welcome to Rozafa Castle, high above Shkodër, in the north of Albania.

Take a moment to get your bearings. The castle sits on a rocky hill that rises sharply from the plain. To one side lies Lake Shkodër, the largest lake in the Balkans, shared between Albania and Montenegro. Close below run two rivers: the Buna, which flows out of the lake toward the Adriatic Sea, and the Drin, the longest river in Albania. Whoever held this hill controlled the water routes between the mountains, the lake and the sea. That simple fact explains almost everything that happened here.

People understood the value of this rock very early. Long before the walls you see today, the hill was a stronghold of the Illyrians. The Illyrians were the ancient peoples of the western Balkans, and many Albanians see them as distant ancestors. The town of Scodra, the ancient name for Shkodër, became an important Illyrian centre. Roman writers mention it by that name, and the modern name grew from it.

Here is the first surprise. This hill was once the seat of a king. Gentius, the last king of the Illyrian state, ruled from Scodra in the second century before Christ. In 168 BCE, a Roman army defeated him, and the Roman historian Livy describes the fall of the city. After that, Scodra became part of the Roman world. So the story of this castle begins not with knights or sultans, but with an Illyrian king and the legions of Rome.

Now, look closely at the walls around you. They are not one single building. They are layers. Over many centuries, different rulers patched, raised and rebuilt them. Byzantine, Serbian, Venetian and Ottoman builders all left their mark. You can often see the joins, where one style of stonework meets another. Some sections use large, roughly squared blocks. Others use smaller stones set in thick mortar. Read the walls slowly, and the changes of ownership are visible.

But no one in Shkodër tells the story of this castle without telling the legend. Locals say that three brothers were building the fortress. Each day they raised the walls. Each night, the walls fell down again. Then a wise old man came by. He told them the walls would only stand if a person was built into them. The brothers agreed to sacrifice the wife who brought them lunch the next day. They promised one another to keep the secret from their wives.

The two older brothers broke their promise and warned their wives. The youngest brother kept his word. So the next day, his young wife, Rozafa, climbed the hill with the food. She heard what was asked of her, and she accepted. But she made one request. According to the tale, she asked them to leave her right eye, her right hand, her right foot and her right breast uncovered. With the eye, she could see her baby son. With the hand, she could stroke him. With the foot, she could rock his cradle. And with the breast, she could feed him.

The walls stood, and the castle took her name. This is folklore, not history, but it has deep roots. Similar stories of a woman built into a wall appear across the Balkans, attached to bridges, monasteries and fortresses. Here is the second surprise. Near the entrance, a carved stone figure of a woman and child honours Rozafa. Locals say that milky water seeps from the stones there. By tradition, mothers who struggle to nurse have come to touch that water, hoping for help.

Let us return to recorded history. In the late Middle Ages, the Republic of Venice controlled Shkodër. Then the Ottoman Empire pushed into the Balkans. In the 1470s, Ottoman armies besieged the castle. The final, great siege came in 1478, led by Sultan Mehmed the Second, the conqueror of Constantinople. The defenders held out for months against heavy cannon fire. In 1479, after a peace treaty between Venice and the Ottomans, the castle was handed over.

We know a great deal about that siege thanks to one man. Marin Barleti was a priest from Shkodër who lived through the fighting as a young man. Later, he wrote an account of it, published in the early sixteenth century. Barleti is better known for his biography of Skanderbeg, the Albanian hero who resisted the Ottomans. His books helped shape how Albanians remember this whole era of struggle.

As you walk deeper inside, the castle opens into a series of courtyards, one behind another. Look for the ruins of a large stone building with an arched shape. It began as a Christian church. After the Ottoman conquest, it was turned into a mosque. Today it stands open to the sky, with grass where the floor once was. One building, two faiths, and now silence. It is a small picture of the town's long, mixed past.

The castle saw war again much later. During the First Balkan War, in 1912 and 1913, Montenegrin forces besieged Shkodër, then still held by the Ottomans. The fighting around the town was long and costly. In the end, the great powers of Europe decided that Shkodër would belong to the new state of Albania. Today, a small museum inside the castle walls displays finds from the site. It is worth a few minutes to see objects pulled from this very ground.

Before you leave, find a spot on the walls with an open view. Look across the water to the mountain on the far side of the Buna. Look down at the town and the roofs spread across the plain. On a clear day, the light changes quickly over the lake, from silver to blue to grey. Listen for the wind, the birds, perhaps a dog barking far below. This is the same view that Illyrian guards, Venetian soldiers and Ottoman gunners once watched.

As you walk back down, pause by the gate and that carved mother and child. Run your hand along the stone if you like. Whether you believe the legend or not, it explains why people here treat these walls with such feeling. The castle is not only a fortress. It is a story that a whole town still tells. Carry it with you down the hill, toward the rivers and the lake.