Back into Albania

Leaving the Macedonian side of Lake Ohrid and heading south, we crossed over the border back into Albania and straight back onto bumpy roads again.

Discussing the ills of the world (or village!)

Not to worry, the lake views more than made up for the roads.

As we travelled around the lake, we drove through several small villages.

In some, we spotted regular clusters of people; probably gathering to talk about their day and cure the ills of the world.

The older women in these parts, tend to wear a head-scarf, a long-ish skirt and an apron.

Albanian bunker

Could be a spin-off from their traditional national clothing. Men just seemed to wear tracksuits, or jeans and shirt.

There were also lots of concrete bunkers around this side of Lake Ohrid, and also many in the hills – in fact almost everywhere in Albania there is a reminder of war!

Apparently, there is an average of 5.7 bunkers for every square kilometre in Albania. They were built in the time of the communist rule here from the 1960’s to 1980’s.

Not used for their intended purposes now-days, they provide a myriad of other uses.

Roadside fishmonger

We were told that many are used for housing by homeless people, shelter for animals, shelter for animal herders, storehouses, and similar.

The one we stopped at was not inhabited, but smelled so bad that it did not invite further inspection!

Heading north it became much less affluent, and we saw lots of roadside stalls selling fish of all shapes and sizes.

Although the trout from Lake Ohrid is supposed to be the best, we declined to buy because they looked like they had been out in the sun for quite a while. 

Boat busy-ness along Lake Ohrid

The lake drive was lovely, with a lot of lakeside bustle, such as boat mending and painting, and other water related activity.

Everyone was either busy with their boat, or sitting watching the water. We really enjoyed the drive.

Heading north up the lake, we found Pogradec. It is a large city and very touristy with heaps of lakeside resorts.

We saw plenty of beach with people obviously enjoying the water, even though it was not overly hot that day.

Church of Shen Marena, Pogradec

Pogradec is an historic city. Apparently, it was first settled by Illyrians in the 5th century BC. The history was evident in the churches in particular.

After a quick look around, we drove back into Macedonia and back to our cliff-top campsite on Lake Ohrid.

Happily, we found our campsite mates still there, which was great as we thought they were going to move on today.

We gathered again for another nice evening of conversation and friendship.

However, we wanted to explore more of Macedonia, so the next morning, we sadly said farewell to our camping buddies, and headed for the main road to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia.

This blog describes part of our 7 month motorhome trip around central and southern Europe, which began in Germany in April.