Montenegro/Albania: Day 17

/ alliwanders

Ohrid/North Macedonia 

I have two free days in Tirana before my flight back to Venice so today I chose to take an organized day trip to North Macedonia. It’s gonna be a long day but why not take the opportunity to see another country?

6:45am pickup outside my hotel and by 7:20am we were finally leaving Tirana, heading east towards the border. 

I’d read in the tour reviews that the crossing could take over an hour but we were through in less than 15 minutes. I chose the wrong side of the bus to sit on so virtually no photos of the journey

Does this count? Mountains and river the whole way plus lots of construction as they’re building a new highway

9:30am we arrived in Ohrid, famous as a pretty lakeside town. It’s a big lake shared with Albania, about 370 sq km. Ohrid is known as Jerusalem of Balkans due to the one-time 365 Orthodox Byzantine churches of which 50 are left.

We had a 1.5h walking tour to get a brief overview of the town and sites:

Maximized square footage and saved $ on taxes by having small street frontage
St Sophia church, one of the 2 churches I saw
Circa 1054, the oldest church in Ohrid
2000 year old amphitheater, sat 5000. Filled in by early Christians till level with the houses above. Only discovered in 1965 when someone started digging to add a garage onto his house!

Walked up past the amphitheater and along a street, then path with pretty views of town and lake until arriving at the 13thC Church of St. John, which makes a rather famous photograph…

We didn’t go inside, I think it’s all about its stunning location. Not sure if my life is now changed, time will tell! 🙂

Our tour ended there and we had a fun boat ride back to the main square then had 1.5h free for lunch and looking around.

Busy Saturday with tourists and families
One of those tourists!

I returned to St Sophia for a look at its interior. Its frescoes were fortunately saved as when the Ottomans came they covered the walls in plaster when they converted the church into a mosque, thereby preserving them. I didn’t think photos were allowed so I just took a few cheeky ones…

At 1:45pm the tour continued by reboarding the coach to continue our circle around the lake, stopping at a viewpoint at the Bay of Bones. 

Archeologists found thousands of bones around a collection of hundreds of wooden stumps at the edge of the bay leading them to understand that 3,500 years ago a community set up on stilts over the water… probably for security against attackers.

Further along we stopped at the Monastery of St Naum’s. It was an ancient church built in 905AD, destroyed in the 13thC by angry Bulgarians but then rebuilt to look the same. I was without any local currency so only enjoyed a quick peek through the door….

Beautifully situated lakeside it’s a big attraction therefore restaurants, beach, souvenir stands, but all very peaceful

10 minutes further was a different land border (we were making a full circuit around the lake) but we were behind 2 other buses so it took 40 minutes just to leave North Macedonia and 20 minutes more to re-enter Albania.

Last look at Lake Ohrid as the sun was setting and we were heading back to Tirana

A customary pit stop, heavy Saturday evening traffic and multiple drop off locations meant I didn’t get back to my hotel till 7:45pm, exactly 13 hours later (yawn). A run to the market for water and snacks then bed….until loud chanting roused me. It was the Flamingo Revolution demonstration, day 118. Nightly protests against the Trump/Kuchner plan to destroy environmentally sensitive wetlands to build a luxury resort. In this instance it actually worked and the plans were rescinded but now it’s morphed into a general condemnation of the government.