Meteora

I have done quite a few long and tricky bus journeys during this trip, so I decided that I wasn't particularly keen on the four buses each way that were required to go to Meteora for the day from Thessaloniki. Instead I decided to rent a car, and brave the Greek roads. The journey there was fairly easy, although I was a bit late leaving due to the rental office operating on Greek time - apparently a 9am start time means more like 10. Anyway, I made it there fine and spent the day looking around the various monasteries perched high up on the rocks.















After a long journey back to Thessaloniki I spent some enjoyable time touring the one-way system and trying to park, with eventual success and only a mild feeling that the car might be towed that evening.

Thessaloniki

The journey from Macedonia to Greece began in interesting fashion - after walking across the border I found that the taxis that I had been hoping would be waiting on the Greek side weren't there.  I managed to book a taxi from a restaurant, so it looked like things were working out well.  So, 10 minutes later I find myself sat in a taxi heading towards Florina, the town in Greece nearest to the border crossing point, and somewhere that I could then catch the bus to Thessaloniki from. The journey didn't take long - even though according to my guide it should take about 20 minutes.  He was driving at crazy speeds, overtaking everyone, so I was trying to figure out whether this was the way people drove in Greece, or perhaps i'd interrupted his afternoon at home watching the football on tv or something.  All I know was that it was probably the fastest taxi journey i've ever had.  It was only when we pulled into Florina bus station and parked blocking the Thessaloniki bus that was about to leave that I remembered the hour time difference between Macedonia and Greece, and realised that the reason he was driving like that was in order for me to catch the last bus to Thessaloniki for that day!

The next day I explored the city on foot, starting off with the view from the White Tower on the waterfront.







The view from the castle looking over the city...

Ohrid, Struga and Bitola

Well it's been a while since I've had working internet, but I do today, and i've somehow hurt my foot, so it's time for a rest, and an update.  After a great Manu Chao gig in Tirana, I left the next day via furgon (minibus normally driven at crazy speed) for Pogradec and the border with Macedonia.  On arriving in Pogradec I found a taxi for the short journey to the border near the Sveti Naum monastery.  It's not the busiest of borders, and the area that has to be driven through in order to reach it is pretty rural.  Great timing for the taxi driver to shift the discussion to gun ownership in Albania vs the UK - i'm sure he does this to help all his passengers relax.  Anyway, I made it to the border, walked through and on to the beautiful Sveti Naum monastery.

I found another taxi driver who drove me the last couple of miles to Sveti Naum, showed me around the monastery and let me leave my bag in the car. We then drove on to Ohrid, about 20 miles to the north. This all cost €10 - not too bad, and even included a couple of extra stops to see things on the way.



This was the view from the balcony at the hostel that I stayed at - Sunny Lake Hostel. The weather was really nice for my first day there, but amazingly it went on to snow that night. I took a walk around town and down to the tiny little church of Sveti Jovan Kaneo perched on a cliff above the lake.













Hmmm, maybe I should have made more of an effort with the language.

The next day I borrowed a bike and cycled the 8 or 9 miles around the lake to Struga and on to the monastery at Kalista. It was my first time riding a bike since I had a slight incident back in the UK, and fell off. The bike probably wasn't the best re-introduction to cycling - it only had a slight hint of brakes and loads of the spokes were broken. It did the trick though, and the ride was really good fun and quite easy due to it being mainly flat along the lakeside.







There didn't seem to be a great deal to see in Struga, so I had lunch, and then set off for the ride back to Ohrid.





The next day I set off for my journey to Thessaloniki in Greece, but on my way this took me through Bitola - an attractive city in the South of Macedonia near the Greek border. I spent a few hours exploring here before catching a taxi to the border.

Manu Chao, Tirana

On finally leaving Berat and arriving back in Tirana, I checked in back at Tirana backpackers, and set off for the Manu Chao concert at the stadium. It turned out to be a great choice, one of the best gigs I've been too - maybe I should come to Albania for concerts more often!



The next day I finally succeeded in getting to Ohrid, and leaving Albania, but I'll definitely be back, what an amazing country!

Berat

After a couple of days in Tirana I decided to move south to Berat.  I took a bus from Tirana, and after about four hours I arrived and checked into my hostel, Berat backpackers.  It proved to be a good choice to visit Berat, it's a really beautiful town with a citadel on the hill and rows of Ottoman era houses on the hill below. The only problem being that I struggled to leave.  In order to get to my next destination - Ohrid in Macedonia it required a fairly early start, but this wasn't so easy when there is a plentiful supply of Raki!  Still, not such a bad place to get stuck.

After my second failed attempt of leaving, we decided to go to some nearby waterfalls and go for a swim - the water was a bit too cold for that, but it was a fun trip including hitch hiking in the back of a truck on the way up to the waterfall.









When I failed to leave in time for a third day, I decided action was needed - unfortunately that action was  to leave but in the wrong direction - back to Tirana.  The plus points were that I got to go and see a Manu Chao concert!

Tirana

My arrival in Tirana was a bit of experience - the bus from Skopje got in at around 5:00 in the morning, and  I only remembered during the journey that Tirana doesn't have a bus station.  That was the end of my plan to stay there for a few hours until my hostel opened.  So the bus dropped us off on a seemingly random street somewhere near the central square, and the only option was to try and find a cafe that was open where I could relax for the next few hours.  I ended up asking a taxi driver and after lots of discussion but with no common language, we eventually set off for a cafe, and he also insisted on showing me where my hostel was (but he got completely the wrong one) on the way.  The cafe was a great way to start my time in Tirana though, the group of locals who were there seemed to be attempting to wake themselves up for work using a combination of coffee, chain smoking and raki - a true breakfast.

I really enjoyed my day and a half or so in Tirana though, it's a really interesting as well as pretty crazy city, and it was good fun to explore.


















Leaving for Berat I had to use the nearest that the city has to a bus station, an area of rubble and half demolished buildings with some buses parked in it.  It's pretty difficult to find any sort of schedule for the buses, but it works really well just turning up and there seem to be buses leaving to most of the major cities fairly regularly.