22 October 2008 | A film tracing Lord Byron’s connection to Albania is being shot for British Channel 4 to commemorate the 200th-year anniversary of the poet’s journey through the country.

The documentary is to star Rupert Everett in the role of Lord Byron, British media reported recently. The programme will be broadcast next year, exactly two centuries after the Romantic poet rode through the mountain kingdom with his diary-writing friend, J.C. Hobhouse. Upon completion of this journey, Byron wrote the narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, one of his best-known works.

Everett, according to British media reports, was filming in Albania at the beginning of October. He spent a part of his time riding a mule around the Gjirokastër and Tepelena districts.

“Everett understood why Lord Byron had come to Albania, where he said he found ‘a Scotland with mosques’ because of the similarity of nature, steep mountains, folk costumes and people’s character," Auron Tare, who was assisting with the production, was quoted as saying by media.

Lord Byron, who was of Scottish descent, is known not only for his Romantic poetry but also for his extensive travels through the Balkans. He died in 1824, while he was engaged in the Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Read more about Albania on BalkanTravellers.com