Durrës has been a port city for over 2,500 years, and nowhere shows that history better than its Roman amphitheatre — the largest in the Balkans, built in the early 2nd century AD and estimated to have seated around 15,000 spectators.
What makes it unusual is where it sits: partly excavated, partly still buried beneath the houses of a working residential neighborhood near the harbor. Wander through its vaulted brick passages and you're a five-minute walk from the beach.
Inside, a small Byzantine chapel with surviving mosaic fragments was built directly into the amphitheatre's structure centuries after it fell out of use — one more layer in a site that's been rebuilt and reused for two millennia.
Getting there: the amphitheatre sits in the old town, an easy walk from the port and the main beachfront promenade.
