Onufri National Iconographic Museum — Attraction in Berat Municipality

The museum is located in an old Byzantine church which is located inside the city's castle. There are multiple kinds of tickets for different categories of visitors but the most common ones are the basic one which costs 400 L and the audio guide one which costs 100 L more (500 L) and offers guiding in 4 different languages, including Albanian.

Me and my friend took the basic one and were offered a printed guiding paper. We were offered a secure shelf to put our backpacks if we so wished and we were told there were no photos allowed inside. This would actually be reaffirmed a couple of times by the guard staying at the door.

The museum can be broken down into 3 sections:

The main part is the actual church part which offers an interesting view of a typical byzantine era church with a large iconostasis, it's thronos and the usual church benches. Some of the dome frescoes are damaged but the floor mosaics are in very good conditions.

The second part is located in the sanctuary place of the church and is the place where Codex Purpureus Beratinus, one of the most important liturgical works in Albania, was found.

The third part is the collection of icons and some other liturgical items which are located mostly on the second floor. Most, if not all, of them are made by Onufri and his era contemporaries and some of them have some Albanian-English papers close to them giving further details.

When we got out we were informed by the guard that we had to return the printed information guide. I utilised this moment to ask some historical questions to the museum staff which were more than helpful to answer each of them and even provide extra information.

All in all I can say that the museum does offer a great potential given its architectural, historical, liturgical and artistic values that it has intertwined in itself. Unfortunately though I believe that potential has yet to be fully utilised. The overall experience may appear rather poor to art history uninformed people, its main points of interests could benefit from some good layed out information or different artistic enhancements (such as short movies, etc.) and the overall visit flow could be improved (some of the items did have QR codes close to them but we felt uneasy bringing our phones out for scanning because of all the verbal warnings that were constantly given to not make photos, the printed guide didn't mention anything about the second floor which we could have fully missed if not for the walking noise we heard upstairs and returning it in the end wasn't mentioned in the beginning - "the whole get it and return it" experience may feel...

The site is amazing and worth visiting, but the staff and general corruption of the place is stunning. They claim not having student discount for foreign people, only Albanian (talk about discrimination lol, when in other countries, EU or not, a student is a student always if they are able to show ID). See picture with sign attached and tell me where is the constraint they claim. They said that is the rule (according to government, never seen a paper of it, just had to take their word) but the sign isn't clearly specifying that 'albanian-only' rule And they won't give a complaints book of any sort when requested... Corruption once again. They also advised to go into their museum website to buy the tickets online but the purchasing URL is broken and the page isn't even implemented (not even in Albanian). Unbelievable. Talk about loopholes to charge more...

We're here spending our money visiting their heritage, but if they themselves are unable to stand by their own rules, well... Then that's a hint on why they're not yet EU.

I went in anyway and encourage to do so, but bear in mind that pls, there's...

Is worth to visit it if you are interested in art but bare in mind that service and presentation could be better. Museum is located in old church. You can see in one place several icons which were also previously presented in West European galleries. You can go behind iconostasis, which is rather unique opportunity. Opens only till 18:00 in summer and 3 minutes later everyone must be out. You have to plan 1,5h for visit otherwise you will just run through it... Judging from comments price increased lately from 200 ALL to 400 ALL. Audio-guide cost extra 100 ALL. It is worth to take it as explaines details which you won't find in poor description near paintings... However it's not perfect as well. In several places it should contain extra information under green button which was missing. When I asked about it in ticket office none was really bothered... Another thing is most of the wall paintings are barely visible due to poor/ lack of light. It's not allowed to do pictures inside but everyone does as you can see in...