Macedonia

We’d read, and heard from numerous people, that it is possible to get to Ohrid in Macedonia from Bulgaria without having to go through the large capital cities. Maybe so, however arriving at the bus station in Blagoevgrad at 6am to be told that the advertised bus doesn’t exist (not told exactly, but received the waving finger and no further information) proved somewhat frustrating. We legged it to one of Blagoevgrad’s equally uninformative bus stations and eventually decided to take a bus to Sofia (Bulgaria’s capital), then to Skopje (Macedonia’s capital), then to Ohrid. We’d hoped to avoid the big cities and the touts and confusion that goes with them but could see no other timely way of getting to Ohrid. Twelve hours, three buses, one unconscionable tout and one border crossing later we arrived in Ohrid. The border crossing between Bulgaria and Macedonia was time consuming and disorganised. Crossing by coach meant that all 50 people on our bus had to get off and open their bags for both Bulgarian and Macedonian customs.

Macedonian rail station

We arrived in Ohrid in the dark and didn’t wander around for long before we were approached by Antonio who owned a set of reasonably priced studio apartments and as a result became our new best friend. We spent two nights in the studio apartment and then moved to Antonio’s family home. We woke the first morning to clear skies and set about exploring Lake Ohrid and its surrounding old town. Ohrid is set on the sure of a huge lake which forms part of the border between Macedonia and Albania and is absolutely stunning.

Beautiful Lake Ohrid

We weren’t wandering for long before we were befriended by our own personal tour guide in the form of a shaggy grey dog who led us around for almost four hours. We’d get to an intersection and he’d take us in the direction of the next point of interest and he even traipsed across the turrets of the fortress in the rain with us. He sat with Bec while Glenn viewed some frescos in a local church before taking off to find his next group of tourists. We suspect he has a tourist sensor and gets fed well by the tourists he hooks up with.

Glenn and his tour guide at the fort

On our second morning in Ohrid we woke to snow which only served to make the place prettier and we walked along the lakeside in the opposite direction.

A typical Macedonian car

That night we moved to Antonio’s house where we met some other travellers and availed ourselves of Antonio’s mum’s biscuit-bearing hospitality. We went out to dinner with our new American, Australian and Swedish friends and enjoyed a much needed night of snow fights and general stupidity before heading to Albania the next day.