Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia/Skopje - Lake Ohrid & Bitola - grilled meat with chips, anyone?
Aftter a taxi, a 5 hour mini-bus ride to Tirana, another taxi to another bus station, another 3 hour mini bus ride to Pogradec and another 1 hour taxi ride (25 Euro) across the border, we arrive in lake Ohrid Macedonia. The taxi driver, from Pogradec, Albania, doesn’t really know the place and we drive around for a bit trying to find the apartment. After a while, we give up and decide to walk, finally succeeding in finding the very nice Villa Jankuloski (27Euro). The apartment is really bright and big and just a 10 minutes walk to the centre of town and the lake. As we are very tired after 13 hours on the road in the heat of summer, we just go out to eat some kebabs & chips with local beer and go back to the room to rest.
The next morning we go out sightseeing and the place is really gorgeous. Ohrid is FYOR Macedonia’s prime destination, a 32km long lake, a fabulous old quarter and great Orthodox churches, surrounded by mountains and topped by a medieval castle. We walk around to visit the monasteries and churches, the old town and walk around the fortified walls. We also visit the castle and get very familiar with the local restaurants. Paul even successfully tries the national dish, Tavče Gravče a white bean stew served with grilled sausage, very nice.
We take a short trip to visit Sveti Naum and on the way we see lovely villages and pebble beaches and more beautiful lake shores and surrounding mountains. The monastery and the church are ancient and very beautiful but the tourist complex around it is somehow a bit tacky, but hey, everyone else seems to be enjoying it.
Well, to be honest, we are not lake people and we started growing restless and missing Greece and the beach, so it is now time to head back to Greece and this time, to one of our favourite places in the world, the lovely island of Naxos.
