Hotel 1 Maji Pogradec

Hallo zusammen,

anbei noch einige Nachtaufnahmen aus Ohrid. Endlich weiss ich, dass ich mein Trauma vom Raubueberfall ueberwunden habe, wenn ich durch eine dunkle osteuropaeische Stadt wandere:-)

Gruss
Ralf

... als Einnahmequelle zu foerdern, hat aber das Problem, dass es keine Kueste hat, das haelt dann doch viele Touristen ab hierhin zu kommen. Dafuer hat es den tiefsten See des Balkans, Lake Ohrid, an dessen Ufer die Stadt Ohrid liegt (300m tief). Dies ist die schoenste Stadt Mazedoniens, einige Kirchen, eine Festung ueber der Stadt und einige alte Gebaeude. Es ist daher auch die touristischste Stadt. So ...

... the cobblestone roads to the fortress are great. The pace is slow and relaxing. There is a great path that winds in and out of the beaches on its way to a great old church. The old man giving us a tour is delighted that we are so interested and offers us Raiki (a local brandy).

After some rain, a beautiful rainbow appears.

The girls and I leave for Ohrid, Montenegro, a small town on a beautiful lake, surrounded by mountains. This is where people from Montenegro go for vacation.

There is one bus departing at 9. Again, we have to ask at the hostel since there is no bus station or web site with current info. I snag a bunch of the local pastries filled with cheese, spinach or meat for the ride. Christina has stomach issues making it a really long trip for her. The ...

... a free place to camp, beside a dirt road in this dark land. Flashing fireflies were so many in the hay fields around us that it seemed we were inside a computer.

And I spent the next four nights by myself on a deserted beach. Lots of rubbery jellyfish bounced their big heads off me as I swam. Actually, I only spent two nights on the beach, because Alessandro's family twice made up a bed for me in their nearby village.

Alessandro, and many other ...

... go wrong. This time we sat and ate at their table, Bukra(Melisa's mother), Melisa, Sara, Marija, Bledi and me. Enjoying hearing the conversations and hand emotions, Bukra kept offering all the different choices of food.. all at once. Bledi, noticed this and started to laugh and spit food all over the table. I guess he was thinking that his mom kept giving me food all at once that I couldn't eat it all in one second! This might be funnier in person ...

... Aahh, Struga! The charishija is not very far away from our hotel, so we went to visit Marija's good friend and her family. Melisa is a very good friend of Marija. Melisa, her husband and their child Sara live in Germany. Melisa and Sara are here in Struga visiting her family. Arriving at this cute house, I was greeted by Melisa, her mother Bukurije, her sister Irma and her father Idriz. Melisa and her ...

... well and started talking to us, which was a lot of fun. He pointed out things for us to see and translated many questions that the people surrounding us had. So by the end of the trip the whole compartment knew who we were, what we were doing in Albania, where we were going etc. The fun aspect of the conversations with this boy was that he was scratching his privates non-stop the entire time! ;) The train ride itself is also quite entertaining. The driver loves hugging his ...

I slept so well the night before, Al has the most comfortable beds, and so much space, including a guest bedroom and guest bathroom! In the morning I had time for a coffee with Al at home, then we went and had fish chowder for breakfast. Instead of the famous Ohrid trout, which is endangered altho many restaurants still serve it, we had California trout raised in a nearby resorvoir. I took an hour to walk out and see the Sv. Jovan monastery, very sweet and perched on a cliff ...

... on, eventually arriving at the amphitheatre. It was really impressive. We took it in, then decided to move on. There was a fort above us, but we decided that we would leave that for the following day. Sometimes you get the feeling that not is all right in the world We found ourselves outside a little shop, so Lucy and I gave in to our needs, and bought a Macedonian carpet as we felt that it would look good with our Turkish, Moroccan and Tunisian ones. We dropped it back in our room ...