Bulgaria, Kosovo and Macedonia

[RooFlyer]

From Veles the next day it was on to Bitola, Macedonia's second largest city (75,000). Our guide has been giving talks and answering questions on the 'politics' of the Balkans 'oy, vey !'. What a mess - pre Yugoslavia, post Yugoslavia, you name it. The tiff with Greece over 'Macedonia' etc etc. More to come on this.

Bitola is home to Heraclea Lyncestis, an ancient Greek city, in Macedonia, ruled by the Romans, up to the Byzantine era, abt the 6th century AD.. Again, there are some excavated Roman era ruins, OK but not the best I've seen.









Plenty of murals



And of curse a theatre, like the last one, half reconstructed.

 

[RooFlyer]

A walk around Bitola's center revealed a couple of mosques, clock tower etc, all very old.

The Orthodox cathedral was getting ready for a wedding:



Every iconostatsis tells a story, but I didn't catch this one!!



A statue of Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great's father:



Surprisingly, a bust of Tito:



This shop has potential!



In the evening we again searched for the Great Macedonian Wine and come up empty handed. My dinner was pretty awful and one of our party got mildly poisoned on what we concluded was under-cooked chicken. Move on from Bitola. ....

 

[RooFlyer]

The next morning, something different - a bee farm and honey tasting, on the slopes of a mountain near Bitola. First we went past round about commemorating two of Bitola's well-known products - pianos and coffee.







We got kitted out and our host gave us a demo of his hives, and the products - pollen, fermented pollen, bee venom, royal jelly and honey. Wonder if @beefarmer might be interested?





Pollen - we tasted it - something different:



Then a tasting. Not very plant-specific honeys - 'mixed meadow' from various places.

 

[RooFlyer]

We then ascended a mountain to gain experience of WW1 in Macedonia - this area was the front between French and German forces and many trenches remain, although now being resumed to nature.



The area is home to the Molika pine, apparently rare outside this place.







Abt a 1.5 km walk down a trail well illustrated with sign boards explaining how the war was fought.

 

[RooFlyer]

Then back down the mountain to have lunch. Our bee farmer is a bit of an entrepreneur, as he and his family hosts lunches of country fare.



First course of salad, of course, tomato, cucumber and grated cheese:



Then home made feta sheep's cheese, some pureed veges, those are spicy local snals on the left and some off fried dough at the front:



Checking out those snails - they were delicious.



Drinks of raspberry juice from his garden. Some had his white wine, which was said to taste a bit like cider:



Mains of pork and beef done two different ways



Our host then went foraging in his raspberry patch again:



... for the desert garnish (with honey, of course):



Score a big win for tour groups. A really nice experience.

 

[RooFlyer]

On my way home now - to be continued after i get back.

 

[RooFlyer]

.... when you are in QSuites (with fast, free wi-fi) , yes it is

 

[RooFlyer]

Resuming. We had left Bitoa in the morning, visited a bee farm and the WW1 reserve atop a local peak in the Pelister National Park, Macedonia. This is the full route for the day. ending up at a hotel on the shores of Lake Ohrid. Macedonia to the north in this map, Albania to the west and Greece to the south.




First stop after the WW1 site was Lake Prespa, which is shared by Macedonia, Albania and Greece. A hotel at Otesevo provided a coffee break as well.



Lake Prespa is the smaller of the 2 large lakes we would visit, with 176 sq km of surface. In 2018 it was the site of the signing of the 'Prespa Agreement' , intended to resolve the naming dispute between Greece and Macedonia; Macednia was to be renamed North Macedonia to satisfy the Greeks, who otherwise would block Macedonia's entry to the EU. After signing on the Greek side of the lake, the party went across the lake to the hotel we stopped off at, for lunch. The name change seems to be unpopular in Macedonia ('north' was never used on the tour); spot the subtle change in this notice!




We then drove ver the mountain pass separating lake Prespa from Lake Ohrid



And on the other side of the pass, a first view of Lake Ohrid. That's Albania to the left and top of the lake.

 

[RooFlyer]

I was rather excited to learn that lakes Prespa and Ohrid were 'tectonic' lakes. Like Lake Baikal that I visited last year, these lakes have formed when the earth's crust has pulled apart a bit, forming faults which allowed the lake area to subside. The Balkans as a whole are a seismically active area.

We arrived at the 'Park Lakeside' hotel, a bit to the south of the small city of Ohrid in the very late afternoon. By this time I had developed a cold, so didn't join the others in venturing into town for dinner, but just stayed in the hotel, and had a nice 'Skopsko' beer. Fortunately I had my last stash of 'full strength' Codral (with pseudo-ephedrine), so managed to avoid the worst consequences of the cold.

Looking across to Ohrid:



the hotel proclaims its own beach, but in typical European style, its gravel.



Ah! Skopsko!



Bleah! Alexandria wine. It was 'orrid. No wine by the glass in these regions. Full bottle, or these minis. Awful.

 

[RooFlyer]

The city of Ohrid (pop. 50,000) and Lake Ohrid were the highlights of the trip, and completely unexpected. Worth putting on your to-do list. Amazingly, Ohrid (OHD) is connected to about 15 other European cities, from London to Milan and Taliin, by air (all LCCs).

The old town is surrounded by a wall of course:



.... and inside we wen to Holy Mary Perybleptos church. For many years this was known as St Clements', and housed relics of the saint, but in the early 2000s a new church by that name was built, and the relics moved, and the old name resumed. The church was built in the late 13th century and is famous for its frescoes by two artists, Mihailo and Evtihij, who we will come across again in our tour.








No photography inside, as usual. A couple of pics from a book gives you an idea of the quality, but not the scale of the artistry inside, where every surface is covered. The mottled texture is from the printing style in the book.

 

[RooFlyer]

Just around the corner was a theatre with a great view - now you'd think a Roman Theatre, wouldn't you?





Ohrid has been settled since about 9,000 BC . In 1979 it was put on the Cultural World Heritage list; in 1980 it was also put on the Natural World heritage list, one of only 28 sites in the world with such a dual listing!

Evidence has been found of villages built on piers over the lake, from neolithic times. There was certainly a town here before Alexander's time, say 300-400 BC and the Romans occupied it 300-200 BC.

The theatre was built in the Hellenistic period, after the death of Alexander the Great ( 323 BC) and before the Romans came. It was extensively modified by the Romans, who took out the lower rows and transformed the theatre into a gladiatorial stage, with access for animals and fighters where the lower rows used to be (the stone work underneath where the lower barrier is now). The names of the occupants' seats are carved into the seats in some places.

Views looking over the lake to our Park Lake View hotel:

 

[RooFlyer]

At the top of the hill within the walled city is Samuel's fortress, built when Ohrid was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire, at the turn of the 10th century. the fortress was built on top of an earlier fort, dating to 4th century BC.






As we noticed throughout Macedonia, they have gone for a lot of reconstruction; the fortress gives great views over the town and lake

 

[RooFlyer]

Views down to the Church of Saints Clement and Panteleimon, built c late 800s, but again, much of what is seen is a reconstruction. From Wikipedia:

The original church is believed to have been built when Saint Clement arrived in Ohrid at the request of Boris I of Bulgaria and restored an old church. Sources say that Saint Clement was not satisfied with the size of the church and therefore built a new one over it and assigned Saint Panteleimon as its patron saint.

Saint Clement used his newly created church as a liturgical building and a place for teaching his disciples his revision of the Glagolitic alphabet, known as the Cyrillic script. Clement personally built a crypt inside the church in which he was buried after his death in 916; his tomb still exists today.

In the 15th century, Ottoman Turks converted the church into a mosque but during the beginning of the 16th century allowed ruined monasteries and churches to be restored, therefore, so was Saint Clement's church. The church was again ruined during the end of the 16th century or the beginning of the 17th century and yet another mosque, called Imaret Mosque (Turkish: İmaret Camii), was erected by the Ottomans. The Imaret Mosque was torn down in 2000 with the reason given that it was constructed over the remains of a church in the Plaošnik area and the former mosque was added to the damaged religious buildings list compiled by the Islamic Religious Community of Macedonia.






Just down the road, another jewel, the church of St John the Theologian at Kaneo. And who wouldn't want to come to church here:







A relative new-comer, built in the 13th or 14th century.

 

[RooFlyer]

Continuing our walk, into the old town via a coffee break by the lake. My mild annoyance at these long breaks continued - 45 mins by the time orders taken, prepared, delivered and bill arrived and paid. I had to keep reminding myself that I was on holidays, but then I reminded myself that I've forked out for the holiday, and there is more to do than have coffee and chat!!



Local architecture ... houses step out as they go up. Note the street light design (throughout town):





St Sophia is the local orthodox cathedral. Built in the 9th century and re-built in the 10th century. Inside are frescoe masterpieces from the 11th-13th centuries, but we didn't go in. (Opportunity to visit in the arvo, but I took a different route.). The church was converted to a mosque during the ottoman occupation of several centuries and the frescoes covered with lime, which may have been the best thing that happened to them.









Brilliant stuff. At that point, the tour ended, and we had a free afternoon. A couple of us had thought lunch in Albania would be nice, so our guide kindly arranged for a driver/car to take us the hour to the border and into the nearby town of Pogradec.

 

[RooFlyer]

Our tour leader told us that it once took him 8 hours to cycle around the lake - shoreline is about 85km, road length obviously longer. We played it safe and decided only to venture to the nearesr significant town - Pogradec



First stop out of Ohrid was a photo stop at the re-creation of a neolithic village built on piers out over the lake - remnants of several have been found:



Exit Macedonia immigration, arrive Albania immigration both pretty clear, so no delay there (but wait till we tried to get back into Macedonia later!!). We had a recommendation of a place for lunch, so made a bee-line there. it was pleasant enough, but it was well after lunch, so pretty deserted. beer first, and then a local lake fish, a 'koran':





Looking back towards Ohrid, just off to the left.





The town itself is a bit of a dead loss as far as points of interest were concerned. Went past these pair of flags, without finding out the significance:



We headed back. Leaving Albania was OK, but at the Macedonian immigration check-point, our driver got into what was obviously a 'problem' conversation with the guy in the booth. Conversation went back and forth ... shrug of shoulders by official, silent periods by our driver.

Eventually after about 5-10 mins, we got the passports stamped and off we went. Turns out that the official was after 10 euros for a 'new permit' (our driver had a 'green card' which entitled him to take paying passengers across the border). He didn't pay. Later, we described this experience to our tour leader, who recounted it to our tour driver. They asked what the guy looked like ... on hearing, they said that was the same official who was trying it on at one of the larger border crossings, so he obviously got transferred down here!

Just on the Macedonian side of the boarder, we had a quick stop at the delightful St Naum monastery. Another 10th century construction, its set on a rise right by the lake and consists of nun's living quarters and another delightful church:

 

[RooFlyer]

The monastery is also right beside some very voluminous springs which make up a small river draining into the lake. You can take boat rides on it .. a lovely picnic spot, if you are in the area:





Lake Prespa, the other side of the mountains is about 150m higher than Lake Ohrid, and the intervening rock is the very porous limestone, so the springs are fed by the higher lake, the other side of the mountains. Its quite a lot of water feeding into the lake:

 

[RooFlyer]

In the evening, dinner was laid on at a village outside the town. In fact it was a 30 minute ride way up into the mountains to a very remote village at the end of the road. A household there has started a small business of providing local meals to visitors - a great initiative.

We were shown into a rustic timber room in their backyard:



The menu:



First off, as usual was the local hooch, rakija. This has been everywhere on the tour, but I haven't mentioned it, as I'm not a spirits drinker (other than G&T ). Rakija can be flavoured as the maker likes. this one is 'thistle rajija' , a nice subtle green colour:





Bleeding fire water is what it should be called. I gave mine to my neighbour at the table and i saw at least one other shot glass being fed to a pot plant (which probably later died )

First course, of course was tomato, cucumber, green pepper and local sheep fetta:



A crispy potato and cheese dish:



Then the snails - not as spicy as the last ones we had, but still nice. I'm not a snail eater usually; these were not in the shells, thank goodness, but if I'd noticed the antennae at the time, I may have baulked:



Veal in sauce which as yum-o. Although we should have been having their 'local wine', it wasn't ready, so they served us a commercial Vranec, which was nice.



Dessert was a piece of cake. Outside was waiting this vacuum machine, very cute:



A great night, with the only flaw being the Brits on the tour who, for some bizarre reason, at the end of the meal, encouraged our host to pick up a guitar to play (badly) some Pink Floyd and Glenn Campbell, to which they sung along. So there we were, in the mountains in Macedonia, 6 or 8 Brits singing along to some American music. Fair dinkum, after 15 minutes I had to interrupt and ask for some Macedonian music (unsaid: ... if we have to sit and listen to this cough). Too hard. Wichita Linesman came forth then, at last, we got on the bus and back to the hotel.

 

[RooFlyer]

Next day, it was off to Prizren, Kosovo, via the 'colourful mosque' at Tetovo.



The 'Sarena' or 'decorated' mosque was frankly not a great attraction, but it did provide a diversion and a break in the road trip. Built in mid 1400, very unusual in not having the traditional dome, and is colourfully painted. 30,000 eggs were used in the cement in its construction .



Inside was pretty, but that was offset by an extremely grumpy caretaker, who 'strongly' suggested we make donations and then basically asked us to shove off. I get it he may not be impressed with busloads of tourists coming to gawk, but our tour leader did, as usual, ask before we went in.

 

[RooFlyer]

Just out of Tetovo we turned up into the mountains again for another village-provided lunch. The road was a bit steep for our minibus with us and all our bags, so mid-way we transferred to some local transport, provided by 'Orid holidays' - motto - "We'll give you an 'orrid time".



Environmentally friendly, all natural air-con in this bus:




Our venue:



The beginning of the spread:



Magnificent view over the Vardar river plain:



Of course, rakija was on offer, or rather, a staple. Our main host was a delightful gent, in his 50s who, although having only basic English was very entertaining, not least because he led the way in rakija consumption, offering a toast whenever he saw any of us about to take a sip from our glasses. i don't mean that in an unkindly way - a superb host.

Starters, as usual, tomato, cucumber, green pepper and sheep's fetta.



Mains was a dish of local speciality - beans - with sausage. Really nice. Oh, and local wine served in coke glasses. Wine was free flowing!



Desert again was a piece of cake, plus more rakija if we wanted. Cute dogs, as usual, in this case a 2 week old puppy:

 

[andye]

Great report.
I see from the menu that George Calombaris is on the QR payroll-kind of apt