Day 19 Lake Ohrid to Skopje

Today we climbed a mountain, explored some of the Ohrid area and ended up in Skopje for the night.  One of the main highlights for the day was our amazing guide Ilina Arsova.  She is wonderful!  If you are going to Ohrid you should check out her hostel and if you need a guide you should look her up http://www.ilinaarsova.blogspot.com/

Breakfast at Villa Kale.  Pretty good, but we had to delay our start time because they only serve breakfast from 8:30.  Not going to complain though because for about $50/night this place was amazing

Ilina picked us up and the first thing we stopped at was the Bay of Bones.  We didn't have time to visit a museum but this was a model village of what they thought it looked like during some of the first settlements

Fog was burning off the mountain when we started.  We hiked in Galicica national park just outside of Ohrid.  The place was very pretty and gave us great views.  On the way there Ilina shared her views about the government plans for the park and area.  Check out her blog for more info if you are interested in environmental issues

We reached the top (from the highest parking spot) in about 1.5 hours.  The hike was reasonably hard but very pretty.  We got a view of both lakes from the top

The only not so great thing about the hike were the crazy amount of flies and bees.  It is hard to see in this picture but these guys were huge!

The hike had tons of wildflowers.  Check the photo site for much more

View coming down

Dinky enjoying the view of Ohrid lake at a picture spot on the way down

After we came down we stopped at Sveti Naum monestary again.  This is the springs that run into the lake.  If we had more time we could have taken a little boat around

The monestary

Female peacock.  I actually think she is pretty good looking.  They were pretty loud again always sqwaking as tourists got too close

Lunch was is this little fishing village at a table over looking the lake on the way back to Ohrid (although not until 3 pm mostly because of our requests for stuff to do)

The meal included trout which was quite good, but I am not sure how they thought we could each eat 2 trout

Ilina parked the car in a secret spot.  We returned to find the spot guarded by a lot of cows.  This lady started charging me when I tried to get into the car, luckily we made it out of there

We had a very brief tour of Ohrid after that.  This is the handmade paper place still hand prints paper on a Gutenberg press.

This is the inside of Saint Sophia church in Ohrid.  The frescoes are ruined in some places, but they are quite old and they are working on fixing it up

Following of brief tour we said goodbye to Ilina and were driven to Skopje by the same company.  On the way there we learned the driver had opposite views of the government compared to our Ohrid guide.  He was in the military though so that might explain the opposite views

In Skopje we stayed in the apartment Urban Hostel.  For $50/night you really couldn't do any better.  The room was huge and had a Jacuzzi 

We didn't really get in until after 9:30 so we opted for the neighborhood place down the street.  It was ok (and cheap).  Strangely they seem to have some sort of culture that says dipping the pizza in this strange almost ketchup like sauce is a good idea.  I say it isn't that great, but at this point we were hungry, the food was cheap and edible.

After dinner we managed to make it up to our room, get our laundry sorted and get to bed.  Tomorrow is our anniversary and we will be kayaking in a canyon.

Day 18 Albania to Macedonia

Can't believe we are on day 18 already.  Today we saw a little of Albania before heading to Lake Ohrid in Macedonia.  We saw lots of what seems to be a very pretty part of Albania, and then ended up in nice cool Ohrid.

Our breakfast at the hotel.  Again great breakfast from a great hotel (well could use something besides nescafe coffee machine, but great otherwise)

After breakfast (and getting our heavy bags carted around) we took a small walk in Berat.  In the light you can really see why it is called the white city.  We saw the Bachelor mosque and walked over to the Orthodox part of the town and the old bridge.  It was already quite hot even at 9 am.

Us on one of the rebuilt old bridges

The same donkey from last night seemed to have move right in front of some Ottoman ruins to help cut the grass

Looking up our street from the hotel.

Our guide then drove us up to the castle (although walking might have been faster, but hotter).  The first thing we saw was the icon museum to Onufri who is a famous 16th century painter.  At one point this castle had 20 churches in it, but the icon museum is in one of the few remaining churches.

View from the castle walls

White city from the castle walls

Inside the castle.  Lots of people still live there, but it is protected by UNESCO

Zach really wanted a picture of the Kastrati gas station with the strange goat mascot. 

Just another person/horse we shared the highway with

We made a brief stop at Elbasan to see the old ruins.  There is a roman fort and this town was on the Via Egnatia (which Zach was very excited about, but not having had world history this didn't mean much to me)

Albanian countryside on the way to lunch

Lunch was at a roadside restaurant not so far from Elbasan.  It started pouring right when we got inside so it was a good choice to get off the road at that point.  I had stuffed peppers.  Zach had some liver dish that was not that great.  

Dinky at the first sight of Lake Ohrid on the Albanian side

Sveti Naum monestary just after the boarder with Albania.  This was started sometime in the 10th century.

Zach listening for Naum's heartbeat at his grave

For some reason there was peacocks there.  They were loud but beautiful

After our very quick visit we were driven to our hotel for the night Villa Kale.  We got a choice of rooms and it was huge!  We had an extra bed, a seating area and a view of the water from our room.  All this including breakfast for about $50/night!

Our hotel/guesthouse

After relaxing for a few minutes we took a walk to see some of town as the sun was setting

Dinky and the Kaneo church.

After our walk we stopped along the water for wine and apps.  The goat cheese and apples were wonderful. My wine (sauvingone blanc) was way better than Zach's local moscato

Birds on the lake

Dinner was at the St. Sophia restaurant.  There was a band the first played a bunch of American and British pop and then eventually Macedonian music.   This is Zach's cabbage rolls.

After dinner we walked around again, got some ice cream and eventually meandered back to our hotel

The finale for the night was watching some sort of Macedonian dance night from the our hotel windows.  Not entirely sure what was going on, but we had a pretty good view that was free.

In the morning we are going hiking and seeing more of Ohrid in the afternoon.  

Day 17 Montenegro to Albania

Day 17 was a lot of doing not a lot again.  We had a long transfer from Montenegro to Albania and then we saw just a little bit of Tirana before we were off to Berat where we spent the night.  Impressions of the day are 1. driver are bad in both Montenegro and Albania (but Albania is worse) and 2. Albania is a little different than the rest of Europe.  It was pretty so far and I am glad we came, but it does seem to be like 40 years behind other parts of Europe that we visited.  Also I didn't know much about their history, but it seems awful.  And now pictures of the day

Breakfast was again in the Hostel.  I forgot to take a picture until we were almost done, but breakfast was good thanks to the bakery breakfast pies

Zach waiting outside the hostel for the ride to leave.  We waited on a couple that was trying to get euros before heading into Greece

And finally in the transport.  It was a van that thankfully had 8 seats for 5 people.  We had the couple from Australia/New Zealand by way of France and a girl up front who is starting Yale medical school in the fall

Leaving Montengro.  This was the longest boarder crossing ever especially since there was like 10 cars ahead of us.  It took like over an hour to get through and it was another van that the driver refused to turn on the ac.

We aren't in the EU anymore!  The Albanian countryside reminded me of a cross between India and Europe.  There were horses and all sorts of other animals next to and sometimes on the road.

We got to Tirana over an hour late.  At this point it was 2:30 and we hadn't had lunch yet.  Luckily our guide George from Albania Trips brought us to this great little restaurant where we had some traditional dishes including kabobs.

After lunch we had about an hour tour of Tirana.  Mostly the city is a little ugly but it does have some old buildings and signs of new life.  This here is something we saw a lot in Albania.  It is a bunker from the dictatorship time.  Albania had a very bad comunist government that was at first with the Russians and then the Chinese and finally nobody.  The dictator was paranoid and built a bunch of the bunkers all over the place.  Our guide said the metal in them is worth about 5000 euro.

Government building on the main square.  This mural was from communist time although it is a pretty good looking part on an ugly building

The mosque on the main square.  This mosque is older and very beautiful inside and out.  After the mosque visit we hopped back in the car for the 2 hour drive to Berat.

Our room at the Mangalemi Hotel.  This place was amazing right in the center of the old city great bed, great views and great service plus not very expensive

After checkin we had a beer on the terrace with our guide

The white city of city of a thousand windows at sunset.  This is the view from the Muslim part to the Orthodox part (although they are now a little mixed)

Donkey in the middle of town

We walked the main parts of town for a while and then had dinner at the hotel restaurant.  This view was great, the food was great.  We had a bottle of wine, a salad, 2 entrees and 2 desserts for $15 and this was the most expensive place to eat in town

Baklava for dessert.  

After dinner we were off to bed.  Tomorrow our guide shows us parts of Albania before we end up in Ohrid Macedonia.