Travel Guide Moscopole

Moscopole (in Aromanian and French) or Voskopoja/Voskopojë in Albanian (pronounced "voskopoïa"/"voskopoïeu"), has around 1,000 inhabitants and is part of the Korça municipality. The village lies 19 km west of Korça (3 or 4 connections per day by minibus).Set in a valley surrounded by conifers at an altitude of 1,200 m, Moscopole is a pleasant place to stroll, with a few restaurants, hotels and bed & breakfasts. Now populated by Aromanians and Albanians, the village has a small network of footpaths leading to 18th-century Orthodox churches and monasteries with remarkable architecture and frescoes. These buildings bear witness to a glorious past. Moscopole was a great city that grew from the 10th century onwards thanks to trade with Constantinople, Vienna, Leipzig, Trieste and Venice. At its peak in the 18th century, it was the richest and most dynamic city in Albania. It boasted up to 70,000 inhabitants, mainly Greeks and Aromanians, thirty churches and monasteries and the only university and printing works in the Albanian territories of the Ottoman Empire. Looted by kachaks (Albanian bandits), then by Ali Pasha's troops at the end of the 18th century, and finally ravaged by Albanian nationalists in 1916, Moscopole has almost disappeared. The neighboring town of Vithkhuq (20 km to the south) suffered a similar fate. Today, it's a small village with a number of beautiful churches.