North Macedonia
It was lovely start to North Macedonia as we had quite a fast day (for us) and reached Lake Ohrid in the early afternoon which meant missed the forecasted rain. We had planned a rest day, and we booked two nights in an apartment. This was the first time we had booked somewhere we weren’t very happy with, the apartment smelled really bad (smoke, and musty), had exposed wiring and the appliances didn’t work. We learnt our lesson for when you book a place that doesn’t have many reviews on booking .com!
Despite this, we enjoyed our rest day - as usual, we spent a good amount of time in the apartment, charging things, washing clothes, cooking food and catching up on route planning and writing up. But we also made sure we had half a day to explore.
In Ohrid, the old town was wonderful to explore. We had lunch in an amphitheater, then walked down to the coast, strolled along the boardwalk, stopped by a beach cafe and visited a church with an incredible view. We could even see the climb we would be going over the next day!
The next day we cycled along Lake Ohrid, and the goal for the day was to cycle over the pass! It was 1250m of elevation over 17km, but the road was quiet once we turned off the main one, and the butterflies were plentiful. As we were at quite an altitude at this point, we noticed a lot of alpine fauna and flora here, that we hadn’t seen so far in the trip.
There were view points along the road, all very picturesque! The descent ended up being the best of the trip so far. The gradient wasn’t too steep, the turns not too sharp, and not a single car past us! Before we knew it, we were down the other side and at Lake Prespa. It was much less touristy here, and there were many buildings crumbling, once holiday resorts left behind from the soviet era.
We couldn’t believe that a place so beautiful and pristine, could have so little tourism. We arrived at the campsite, which was also quite derelict, no shower for us this night!
It was an erie mile long walk to reach the only restaurant around, caution of snakes the sign said! The view from the restaurant was beautiful, but it didn’t quite make up for the small portions.
The highlight of this stay was definitely the lovely campsite dog who “helped” us get ready the following morning.
About an hour into our ride leaving Prespa, we passed a small shop, and stopped to get some food for the day, and we stopped to get Zach a coffee. We sat with another cycle tourer, a man a similar age to us from Germany. He joined us for the morning riding! We split paths when we got to city of Bitola, as Zach and I wanted to use the last of our currency to buy some lunch (pizza was the best option).
In the afternoon, we crossed into Greece, and back into the European Union!
