Relaxing at the historical village (pic by Cat)
Our border crossing from Kosovo was at a tiny little border stop, where there was only us and two girls on foot waiting to be processed. Unlike the other borders we’d passed, we didn’t have to queue, but we also had to get out of the van and be processed individually rather than having our passports processed without more than a glance inside the van to see that we were the correct number of people.
A tiny church in Mavrovo
We stayed one night in Mavrovo, in skiing country, at a ski lodge hotel – Hotel Bistra. It was nice and cool up in the mountains, a relief from the warm weather and humidity we’d been having. There was a pool and spa, but I was feeling a little iffy that night, so I opted for an early night instead of taking advantage of these.
While in the area, we visited more monasteries, mosques and churches (most still in use except the submerged church at Mavrovo which was flooded when the dam created the lake).
More delicious food was eaten – we visited a popular picnic spot in the hills of Tearce via a slightly too-exciting taxi ride through steep single-lane roads, where we were fed on salads, ricotta-stuffed capsicum and a huge pork rib and potatoes.
We also visited Hotel Tutto, a place renowned for its slow food, where the head honcho cooks gorgeous fresh food in front of you, then you get to have a bit of a taste of everything. We had fresh ricotta and a feta-type of harder cheese (with bread and potato burek for those who could eat it), then a tomato salad, chanterelle mushrooms, then a warmed ricotta dish made with capsicum, tomato and onion, then fried porcini mushrooms and onions, and a curried chicken dish.
We had a brief break to watch the chefs in the kitchen making burek by stretching the filo pastry on the table, before sitting down to a dessert of a semolina biscuit and preserved quinces. Deeeelish.
Rolling the filo pastry
Watching the cooking demonstration and trying so many traditional dishes really helped to bring the focus of the tour back onto food culture, whereas I’d started to feel that we were spending much more time driving between short sight visits than anything else. I love the architecture and decoration of the places of worship we’d seen, but there were quite a few in a short space of time, and they’re already combining in my memory.
Having a good time over lunch (photo by Cat)
We then settled into somnolence back in the bus, on our way to the Ohrid region. Ohrid is a huge lake and the biggest Macedonian city next to it is called the same name. Our accommodation is in the Old Town, on a steep stone street leading down to the port. This opens out onto a pedestrian mall with lots of shops selling clothes, tourist tat, and restaurants (and icecream shops!) We sauntered along this and then along the boardwalk along the waterline, where apparently a huge storm 6 months ago had damaged all the restaurants and flattened the boardwalk. It was hard to imagine, looking at the placid lake in front of us.
Our full day in Ohrid was spent on a boat – we zoomed across the 30km-long lake to visit another monastery, a historical village with reconstructed Bronze Age buildings on stilts over the water, before mooring at another cove for a fish lunch and a swim in the clear waters of the stone beach. None of the Aussies in the party were prepared for the “pebble” beach, and hadn’t brought water shoes, but it was pretty difficult to get in and out of the water because of that, but once in, the water was great. Quite cold, but so clear you could see the bottom easily.
We reluctantly left the water and climbed back on the boat for the trip back to Ohrid, where two intrepid travellers went off for a parasailing session (eek!) while the rest of us wandered the shops and headed back to the accommodation.
Swimming
That evening we had a visit to a family in one of the villages nearby, where we ate a meal of delicious local food, all sourced from their farm or their neighbours. We began with amazingly tasty snails and then veal and pork in sauces. We were all still so stuffed from lunch on the lake that we barely made a dent in some of the dishes, but it was all really good.
Two Weeks Away 