15th - 16th August: trying for some boring holidays...

The first full day of my main-stream holiday began - with a breakfast of bran flakes shared, or mis-used as a dance floor by some happy worms for a lively jig - brrrrrrrrrrrrrr, did I feel like running away? yes, I did !!! 

However, from there, my new hosts made all efforts to offer me good hospitality, the cleanliness improved noticeably and the breakfast became varied every day with homemade or bought Macedonian specialties - no more traces of muesli...

Ohrid is a lively, unfortunately a bit touristic place but I discovered a beach far enough from the bulk of tourists, away from noisy beach bars and only to reach by a steep path, so only a small minority would/could find their way there.

In the next few days, I sampled every possible variation of burek, lots of local veggies kissed by the sun, of course palacinka (Balkan crepes) and I did lots of swimming in the clear and beautiful waters of the lake. 

I did the culture thing too, and went round all the massive and tiny churches on the hills - to see them from the outside only: due to cooking hot 33+ temperatures I wore too few cloths to be admitted inside. Some were anyway so tightly filled with wedding guests, that certainly no additional soul would fit in. The old city wall offers an amazing few all over Ohrid and the lake.

Scared of local rip-off-taxi-drivers, I went to take my excursions by local transport, which proofed fairly adventurous. Heading off I did with completely wrong information about bus stops and times given to me at the bus station info desk. There are no indications or timetables displayed anywhere; most ‘bus stations’ could only be identified by a bunch of people being gathered, seeming to wait patiently for nothing in particular. I felt so proud, when I finally figured it all out, when, where, how much, having use every single scrap of my tiny Serbian language skills.

This way I went to the next town, Struga, which is lovely, still touristic, but mostly frequented by Macedonians. The goods at the markets are about 25% more tacky, 50% cheaper though, and the small-pebble beaches made chilling out on the beach and getting in and out of the water a lot less painful. 

I managed to order and enjoy the best trout I ever had, freshly caught from Lake Ohrid; though the strange restaurant manager would not permit me to sit next to the water-front, on one of the many empty tables, for no apparent reason… This type of 'can-not-be-bothered' vibe reminded me of a school trip to Eastern Berlin, long before the wall fell, and the way the waiters over there served you your coke...