Ohrid, North Macedonia

Today we left our lovely hotel in Tirana for the drive up through the mountains to cross onto North Macedonia, stopping for a coffee before leaving Albania. The drive took several hours in a minibus but it was through pretty countryside following a river rushing through wooded hills till we started the climb up to the border. We had our first glimpse of Lake Ohrid below.

We soon reached the pretty relaxed town of Struga which is divided by the Black Drim River. Here we changed money and had a walk by the river to the lake. A couple of boys aged about 10 were using fishing nets and spoke beautiful English, proudly showing off their catch which they were throwing back.

Further round the lake we came to Ohrid and checked in to our hotel. Our room was so small we were barely able to get our bags in and the mattress was thin, but i had no time to do anything about it as it was already 2pm and Tedi wanted to take us to a lunch place and show us around. I had a veg risotto which was very nice. Then we had met our local guide, a lovely young woman.

We walked over 6 miles with her, around the old town. A characteristic of the houses is that they are narrower on the bottom story than the top. As each floor is added it gets wider. All the street lights are in this shape. We saw the exterior of several churches and a paper-maker enterprise with an old printing press. We headed uphill passing a tiny church dedicated to St Barbara before reaching the site of a Greek Theatre and the walls of the old town. We saw the site of an old university where a new church is being built in the Byzantine style. We headed downhill through some woods to reach the famous viewpoint of the 13th C Street Church of Sveti Jovan at Kaneo, set on a cliff above Lake Ohrid. Many photos were taken but none do it justice. Here we are in the blip.

It was a pleasant walk back to our Su Hotel, along a boardwalk then going by the boats waiting to go out on lake trips. Our hotel is at the far end of the town overlooking the lake. (Not that we see it from our room which looks at other buildings). Tedi came with me to enquire about another room and at first reception said there were no rooms. Then I asked again and he asked our room number (Tedi had allocated the rooms) and it was discovered we’d been given a single man Robert’s room and he had ours. Tedi said all rooms were the same. Reception said we should go back in 30 minutes but in 5 he knocked on the door and showed me a better room a floor above. At least we can walk round the beds and there’s a space to put our bag. And the mattress is more than 2” thick!

We walked 8.5 miles today as the hotel
is at the end of the lake so we had the pleasant walk along the wide well-lit promenade to the restaurant area to find food tonight. We had a caprese salad and a glass of wine total cost £12. In a shop buying water a woman heard of accents and spoke. She was from Troon with 3 other and a private driver. Another small world thing - one of the couples in the group work at a friend’s garden centre which turned out to be the place with the wonderful wild flower meadows near Wareham we visited when on our round England tour in 2021.