My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, YouTuber, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
Today was a lovely rest day. For breakfast we had an omelette and pancakes outside in the sun.
Later we went for a walk.
Dinner was great too.
It’s been a nice break here at Ciflik winery. Tomorrow we head to Greece.
The place we stayed in Ohrid, Villa Sofija, was the first place we have stayed that didn’t include breakfast. But it was a really nice place to stay and it was cheap. We paid $54 Euros. It is really fun to walk around a town to find a place for breakfast. We ended up at the same place we ate last night. It is a family run restaurant right on the lake shore. We had a great breakfast.
On the menu the English translation of my breakfast was fried bread. It turned out to be what we call french toast. And it came with a cup of jam and a cup of tapenade.
At 11 we checked out of our room and walked down to the central square to find a taxi to take us to the bus station. As we got out of the taxi at the bus station another taxi driver offered to take us to Bitola for the same price as a bus fare. We agreed and got in. There was another passenger in the front seat. A bit down the road our driver stopped at a bus stop and recruited more passengers. I moved to the center seat in back and another guy got in the back, basically the trunk.
We were headed to Ciflik Winery which the taxi driver said was very nice. The distance from Ohrid to Ciflik winery in Bitola was about 45 miles. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes and cost us about $14.
We are staying at Ciflik for two nights to have a vacation from our vacation. The place was packed with people enjoying a Saturday lunch when we arrived. They have grass and playground equipment and children were running everywhere. And there were lots of parents running after toddlers. Some things are universal.
We had a snack mid afternoon and a great dinner after most of the crowds had left.
The Albanian dictator, Enver Hoxha was paranoid about outside forces attacking Albania. Starting in the 1970s the communist regime built 175,000 bunkers across the country. We saw many of these when we were driving through the countryside. They also built enormous bomb shelters under government buildings. This morning we visited BUNK’ART 2, a museum about the communist era and an art site. It is in a former secret bunker under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
We walked back to the hotel and around noon checked out and took a taxi to the bus station where we caught a bus for Ohrid, Macedonia
It was an uneventful trip except that we did see a minor accident when a truck stopped quickly because someone was stopped to make a left turn on a curve and the car behind him ran into him. This is the second accident we have seen the aftermath of. The other one happened a few days ago. It looked like a Mercedes had hit a tractor that must have been crossing the road. Both the tractor and the Mercedes’ were in bad shape
We took a taxi from the bus station in Ohrid. Unfortunately I showed the driver the address for Villa Saint Sofia instead of Villa Sofia. It took us a while to find the right place but eventually we were settled in a very nice room overlooking Lake Ohrid. Lake Ohrid is very similar to Lake Tahoe, big, clear, deep and very blue.
After resting a bit then we hiked up to Saint John’s church on a point overlooking the lake. We stayed to watch the sunset.
For dinner we walked down to the waterfront. It was a bit cold but we had a very good dinner right on the edge of the lake.
The couple who owned Guest House Tershana in Peshkopi where we stayed Wednesday night were our age. A lot of Albanians have told us they have relatives who live in the United States. Our hosts had a painting of four men on horseback in the breakfast room. The man, whose name I can’t remember, told us that it was of his father and his brothers in the picture. And that his father and two of his brothers emigrated to the U.S.
Thursday we completed our tour around Albania and drove back to the capital, Tirana. The roads were mostly paved today except for some road work.
It is nice to have a car but it is also nice not to have to deal with traffic, bad roads and navigating. In Tirana we dropped our bags at the hotel then drove to the rental car return place.
The rental car return place is on a one lane street. There was a car in the driveway of the garage where we needed to return the car so we blocked traffic with horns blaring behind us until the car was moved. In any case we successfully returned the car. By the way, the car review video will be posted to YouTube soon.
Then we went for coffee and treats to celebrate a successful completion of this part of the trip.
After getting our caffeine and sugar high we walked to our hotel.
We went to an excellent rooftop restaurant for dinner and had their 10 course tasting menu. The chef delivered a couple of the courses. Each course was a taste treat.
Today added to our memorable adventures. The direct route that Google proposed said that it would take 3 hours and 49 minutes to go 80 miles from Gjinar where we were last night to Peshkopi. The alternate route which required you to go back to through Tirana was 3 hours 48 minutes to go 102 miles. We should have realized there might be a good reason for the big difference.
We took the direct route and ended up having to drive on 60 miles of very bad dirt roads. The trip took us six hours. We saw many interesting things and it was a beautiful day. So other than it being a very tiring and bone rattling day everything turned out fine.
Marion's Blog 