From Travel Narratives to Cultural Routes: Interpreting via Egnatia as a Heritage Corridor

Cultural Routes have become important instruments for promoting shared heritage and sustainable tourism across Europe, yet the potential of travel literature to inform their development remains underexplored, particularly in the case of Via Egnatia. This study addresses this gap by developing a theoretical distinction between travel narratives as ideological representation, shaped by colonial and Orientalist discourse, and as corroborable historical-geographical evidence, and applying this framework to nineteenth-century accounts by Byron, Leake, Lear, and Durham (1812–1909). Using a qualitative, theory-informed case-study design, the study combines critical-discourse analysis with thematic coding of 127 narrative references, supported by a documented codebook, an intra-coder reliability check (84% agreement), and cross-author triangulation. The analysis identifies a corroborated mobility corridor along the Shkumbin Valley and recurring intercultural contact points, consistent with independent archaeological scholarship. A site-level cross-check of six heritage assets and associated visitor reviews shows that formal heritage protection already exists along the corridor, but that on-site interpretation rarely presents it as part of a coherent Via Egnatia narrative, a gap confirmed by an analysis of Albania’s national tourism-planning documents. The study’s principal contribution is theoretical: it shows how critically read travel narratives can extend destination-storytelling and heritage-interpretation theory beyond descriptive associations, while offering a transferable, low-cost model for translating narrative and empirical evidence into interpretive practice for the Council of Europe Cultural Routes Programme.