Lake Ohrid Macedonia in Full Swing

When cities in the Balkans say they are in season, a better description would be 'We're Full'. Period! Very few places to stay, restaurants with extra long waits for food (or seating), wall to wall people strolling water-side/central, no privacy or space on the beaches, kids everywhere and club music thumping until (only 2am in Ohrid). Despite these 'givens' for any of the locals out here, my friend Pranvera and I decided to enjoy a weekend away in the beautiful lake-side town of Ohrid, a 4-5 hour drive from Pristina. I splurged and rented a nice Passat with excellent CD and some extra pick-up to help me pass all the trucks on the single-lane in Kosovo and enjoy the high speeds of the expressway in Macedonia. The drive would have easily been closer to the 4 hour mark if it wasn't for the fact that we chose the 'less traveled' route via the mountains to cross over into Macedonia and had to wait a good hour at the border so the lazy guards could process all 7 cars. Unbelievable how needlessly slow that process was but we were enjoying each others company and bitching about the nice cars that were able to bypass us, cut in line, pay a bribe and be on their way.

We arrived just in time to enjoy a night out on the town. Our splurge for a closet-like room along the waterfront just outside of town was acceptable except of the fact that our greeting fruit basket was covered in mold leaving less than pleasant smell in the room. Fortunately, it got us upgraded to a room with about 2 more square feet which we enjoyed. Trying to maintain our momentum we wandered up through the crowds of people in between all the kiddie rides, BBQ stalls, bad Serbian turbo folk music and some of the best display of Balkan fashion I have ever see (refer to 'On the Catwalk Baby' blog). PranV wanted to take me to a nice seafood place she knew of which happened to have been one of two places I had previously eaten ate during one of my lunchtime visits to the town. Unfortunately I can't say the food was a good as last time. My Ohrid trout must have been cooking for hours since it was as dry as the bed of rice it was on. Fortunately the staff was very accommodating and found a new fish willing to sacrifice his life to please just another tourist.

The great thing about Ohrid is it is one walking street after another with nothing but cafes, clubs and restaurants (many on the water). So we just went about to cruise the strip eventually fighting our way into a very crowed dancing bar where we made our way to the bar for a drink and carved out 1 square foot out on the dance floor to move and groove. Of course stopping every couple of minutes to stare and comment on the girls' outfits (not leaving much to the imagination). And slightly to our disappointment everything shuts off and closes at 2pm emptying everyone in the narrow streets at the same time (essentially a drunken summer parade full of mostly underage partiers. Our stroll down the waterfront was the perfect romantic nightcap before arriving at our hotel to crash, in eager anticipation of enjoying what my boss claims to the be the best breakfast in the Balkans (he has been out here 7 years).

I should have know better than to raise my expectations to European/American standards. Yes the breakfast buffet was nice but offered mostly overheated and dry eggs, bacon, sausage and then the standard Balkan mixed cheese, veggie and meat platters. I will say it had the best damn cream puff I have ever had and the fruit was much better than what had been left in our rooms. Fortunately the weather was perfect and even though PranV had already gone for a long run/walk while I slept in, we returned to the pebble beach she had scouted out to lay in the sun, swim in the nice cool lake and do some reading. All great fun even even though families continued to prop up their umbrella's all around us and have their naked kids running back and forth with their lethargic mothers yelling at them to stop whatever things they were doing. Ahhh, family vacations.

After recharging our batteries with a quick shower we hit the town for a half kilo beef lunch with beer and the infamous shopka salade. Enough fuel to get me up the hill to explore the Ohrid fortress and it's spectacular views of the surrounding areas, waterfront activities and Albania in the backdrop. After playing around a bit we wandered down past the monetary to St. Sophia right on the water. Most picture perfect church I have ever seen. I had actually visited these places earlier (as had she) so we again just enjoyed each others company, the beautiful setting and nice walking exercise (obviously easy enough on the arm). I guess we showed our age(ing) at this point since the only thing we both agreed to do next was nap. Of course in anticipation of another large night on the town. Not quite needing sleep I watched back to back episodes of one of my favorite sitcoms, 'Fraiser'. Always a good laugh.

And before we knew it we were back on the catwalk, packed beyond belief. The weather had already begun to take a dive with more wind and cooler temperatures which were invigorating (after having had so many weeks of almost 100F). Problem now was where to go. Too many places to choose from and most appeared full. Street after street we checked out shops, artist galleries and a couple potential dining areas before we entered a very family oriented pizza joint to wait extremely long for a tiny pizza and the wrong order on our entree. At least we were all about the company rather than the cuisine. Enough to fill the appetite and allow us to return to one of the hip cafes for after dinner drinks and people watching, Balkan style. I had earlier high hopes to drive to an all night beach rave I had been told about and then as the time approached I wondered who I was really kidding. We faded away quickly to be ready for another large breakfast and a visit to the soring of the entire lake and an extremely peaceful monastery right on the Albanian border.

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Could have been the perfect Sunday outing with the cloudy, rainy and windy skies if it weren't for the fact that it was Sunday and EVERYONE else was doing exactly as we were. Plus I hadn't packed any cold weather clothes so we only spent 1 hour wandering the grounds, churches, beach and hotel before heading back to the car for another 5 hour return drive. Uneventful except for the fact that as soon as we crossed the Kosovo border, we must have passed or been caught behind no less that 2 dozen wedding convoys complete with the Albanian flag waving from the front car, everyone honking non-stop, a towel tied to the side mirror of each following car and the one carrying the bride always wrapped in some of the kitchiest ribbons, bows and streamers usually with a huge bouquet blocking the drivers view while sitting on the hood. A nice welcome back 'home'.