Lake Ohrid - North Macedonia, and back to Albania for our last time in the Balkans. - 30th August 2026
Zdravo from North Macedonia.
As a young tacker growing up in Newie, I went to both primary and high school with lots of Macedonian kids. I was always great mates with the “Massos”, and when I’d see them out in town on Saturday night, they would always come up and introduce me to their cousins and mates, shout me a drink and have a laugh. Apart from the one or two times a year, when we played against them in soccer, and we HATED them with a passion, I treasured my friendship with the community and still do to this day.
I never thought, however, that I would go to North Macedonia, because all of their families had fled under Communist rule, and they all told me it was a shithole compared to Australia.
But here we are camped up in Delph in Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia, about 30 years after those warnings.
Author’s note: The North Macedonian flag has to be one of my all-time favourites. The eight rays of the yellow sun on the red background…too cool.
So. We left Tony’s place and spent the night in a cool little caravan park in a town called Elbasan, and left at sparrows to get through the border check before it got too busy.
We drove up a huge mountain, and the border was right on top. We had all of the official documents ready to go, but old mate did not like our insurance.
“OK, we are covered in all of Europe.”
“Ah, but Macedonia is not technically in the EU, so your insurance is not covered.”
“Fine… how do we get insurance?”
“Go and see the lady on the second floor of this building.”
So, we trudge up the stairs of the Communist era concrete building - complete with Cyrillic alphabet everywhere - past the guards smoking darts under the NON-SMOKING sign, into Ethyl’s office. (Ethyl probably wasn’t her name, but the Pauline Hanson colour dye job on her bouffant gave us the impression that she was an Ethyl, or such.)
Anyway, 50 Euros later and this legal bribe now ensured that we could drive in Nth Macedonia. Woo Hoo.
Off we trundled in Delph to the nearest supermarket and stocked the fridge and cupboards before we made our way to a caravan park on the Eastern side of Lake Ohrid called K J Divono.
It was hot, and most of the pitches were taken, but we fluked one, right near the camp kitchen under two massive trees and about 20 metres from the lake. You Bewdy, this’ll do us!
We set up camp, had a swim in the lake - the beach in front of the caravan park was a public beach, so everyone in town was there- checked out the on-site bar and restaurant, and spent the day in the shade.
And that was pretty much how we spent the hottest part of the next few days.
We did get the bikes off the back of Delph and ride along an amazing bike track/promenade into the town of Ohrid itself.
Ohrid is a cool town that contains a modern section and an Old Town. When I say Old Town, I mean old - 8th Century BC old!! It contains 365 churches - one for each day of the year - a Roman Amphitheatre, and beautiful old cathedrals. The water of the Lake is clear, and the elevation of the lake is around 700 metres above sea level. All this makes for a pretty special place. We rode our pushies through the cobblestone streets to a boardwalk, walked along, had lunch, watched the sun-worshippers, and wished we had bought our swimmers.
We rode back in the early morning too and rode around the deserted marble and cobblestone streets to soak in the vibe. It was very cool. Old meets new, and enjoying the summer was paramount, as it snows here in winter.
Lake Ohrid is also famous for its boat tours. Most of the tour companies do the same route each day, and we thought, why not?
As I like to say: Even a shitty day on the water is better than a good day at work!
Our skipper pulled the catamaran into the pier next to our accommodation and we joined about 8 other people for our day on the lake.
First stop was The Bay of Bones.
I know that this sounds like something out of Game of Thrones, but it was a recreated village that archeologists discovered a few years ago. The stumps in the water proved that an ancient civilisation lived in a village on the lake itself. The ‘bones” were actual animal bones that they found that had been used as tools of all kinds. They even had a form of currency. The huts were cool, but man, the people must have been short back then. Anyway, we took some vision. Check it.
Next stop was a place that can only be accessed by small boats on the lake: the Church of Mother of God Zahumska.
This ancient church still contained many (damaged and graffitied) frescoes and reminded us of the ancient Orthodox Church that we saw in Serbia. Pretty cool.
Our main stop was the Monastery at St. Naum, on the southern tip of the lake. We stayed here for over two hours and checked out the monastery grounds, the beach and a cool restaurant where Jen-Jen had lake trout that was pretty delicious, and I had a pork cutlet that was pretty disappointing. Anyway, here is the galleria from this little corner of the world.
That was about it for Ohrid.
We worked out that we have had about two months of cool weather this year and seven months of scorching summer. We were going to stay for longer, but we found a hotel with a spa, sauna, pool, and A/C in Durres, Albania, which was close to the ferry terminal.
So we packed up Delph and booked four nights in the Orion Palace Boutique Hotel in Durres.
We arrived, and it was nowhere near anything else, so we literally did not leave the hotel grounds for the next four days, unless we got something out of Delphi.
We used the pool and restaurant every day. We booked a spa, sauna and massage one day, and got to know the friendly girls that worked there.
We also watched some TV, read our books and hid from the blazing sun as best as we could.
This was the first time that we didn’t investigate the town and seek things to do.
Nuh, we hibernated… and it was good.
Oh, I almost forgot… on our way back over the border into Albania, they asked (at the same border crossing) for our Albanian car insurance. We had all of the official documents ready to go, but old mate did not like our insurance.
Cue wavy lines and deja vu music
“OK, we are covered in all of Europe.”
“Ah, but Albania is not technically in the EU, so your insurance is not covered.”
“Fine… how do we get insurance?”
“Go and see the man in the building over there.”
“But there’s no one in that building.”
“Well, then wait…”
What a cock-up.
When we initially entered Albania over 6 weeks ago, no one asked about insurance, and we thought that we were covered. Turns out we weren’t covered the whole time (even when Jen-Jen winged the copper with Delph’s mirror.)
Old mate finally turned up, and two cash machines were not working, so he drove us to a cafe to withdraw cash and 90 EUROS LATER, a second official bribe- I mean payment had been made, and we were free to drive to Durres,
And that, my friends, is the end of our Balkans adventure.
We checked off all of the countries that we wanted to see, ate some great food and swam in some incredible bodies of water. The people were superb, and we felt safe all the time. (except for old mate taxi)
I’m glad that we’ve seen this part of the world now, because we all know how development works and in the not-too-distant future, the beaches will probably all be dwarfed by high-rises and the quirks of each place will be harder to find.
I just hope that the roadside fruit vendors never have to leave.
We’re back into the EU tonight as we drive Delph onto the overnight ferry from Durres, Albania to Bari, Italy before we get the FlixBus to Rome.
Arrividerc, dear readers and thank you, Balkans; it’s been a durrie-filled blast!!
Ciao.
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