I'm writing today on a beautiful sunny, Autumnal day at Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. A few days ago we decided to take a detour into Greece from Albania. We left our much loved home from home in Gjirokaster and got an early bus across the border. The border crossing took at least two hours with one Albanian man outrightly advising us to "avoid the Greeks"! Not best friends as countries then...
We finally got through and made it to Meteora. We just happened across this place as we heard another traveller talking about it. When we looked it up in our book, it claimed it should be the 8th wonder of the world, so we thought it must be worth a visit! When we arrived, however, we couldn't see anything as Kalambaka, the town you stay in to visit Meteora, was covered in a huge grey rain cloud. We were a little pessimistic about the weather outlook for the next day but we lucked out massively and got a cold but sunny day.
Meteora is a series of monasteries suspended on bizarre rock formations, dating back as far as 9th century. The rocks are like huge thin columns into the air and when you look up you can just see these beautiful buildings teetering on the top. We were amazed that we had never heard about this or seen pictures before because it was just staggering. How they built these sophisticated complexes on top of these rocks is beyond me.
We took the bus up to the starting point, the largest of the monasteries and felt a little queasy as we climbed the staircase carved into the rock, winding all the way round the rock face up to the monastery. Ladies have to wear long skirts, no trousers, but I was grateful for the extra warmth of adding a skirt over my jeans. We bumped into a few quintessential Greek Orthodox priest-types in their long black dresses, whilst wandering around the old workshop, museum and church. The highlight was the view from the terrace- as usual only the photos will do this justice. As we were descending the staircase something caught my eye- a priest travelling in what was like an open top cable car, suspended high above the ground, to get to the road! They have a pulley system to bring the priests and supplies up to the monasteries- saves the holy men some tiring steps....
We walked down through the other peaks and visited another monastery and a nunnery with equally spectacular views. After seeing this incredible place, looking at the dire weather forecast, eating our fill of Tzatziki and souvlaki and massively breaking the budget in over-priced Greece, we decided to skip Mount Olympus and get back into the Balkans! The easiest crossing was from Thessaloniki into Macedonia so we took a bus and spent a night there. I imagine that this place was hugely important in ancient times and would be very interesting to modern tourists....had the ruins not been built around, graffitied and basically left 'to go to ruin' (ha) by the locals. It's a real shame this has happened and we were ready to leave after one night.
We took a bus all the way up to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. We had read in the guidebook that the city had a lot of statues but nothing could prepare us for what we saw! Basically, as far as we could gather, Macedonia has had a huge cash injection from the EU. They desperately want to join the Union but Greece keep blocking their bid due to the name they adopted after the fall of Yugoslavia. Macedonia is an area in Greece apparently and even though the country agreed to change their name to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece still weren't happy. However, it does not seem to be holding the country back at all- helped by the fact they were the only country to declare independence from Yugoslavia 100% peacefully, the investment has helped develop brilliant infrastructure of roads and public transport. However, it's as if the government had some cash left over and are trying to build a modern Rome...I am not kidding, there must be at least 200 brand new statues within a square mile in Skopje! And they are the biggest statues I have ever seen- huge rearing horses, writers, politicians, family depictions- it is nuts and has to be seen to be believed.
We spent the first day meandering around the statues and new government buildings as well as the old Muslim area of the city. The next day, on the advice of our brilliant hostel owner, we took a bus to the top of the hill above Skopje to visit the cable car and 4th century church. Unfortunately the cable car was closed that one day in the month for servicing, so we started to walk to the church, a good 5km away. After a long walk we reached the church only to be told it was closed as the lead monk chap had been rushed to hospital....it was not our day, or his I suppose. So we had some lunch in a very cool traditional wood house and started the long walk back down to the city.
Yesterday we arrived in Lake Ohrid, a huge tectonic lake shared with Albania. We headed straight out to explore and saw the amphitheatre and fortress. Then we came to a very old church surrounded by ruins which is meant to be archaeologically very important to the area. However, there was a huge construction site around it as they build a university of archaeology, which seems a little counter-intuitive to me but nevermind. The lake is very beautiful and we wound down the cliffs and reached a lovely little church on a cliff face. We sat for some time and watched the sun set and the Kingfishers darting over the water's surface trying to grab some of the hundreds of fish beneath us. We've lucked out with the weather again today and it has been crisp but sunny. We have spent the day walking around part of the lake and visiting a handmade paper shop that has an original Gutenberg print.
Tomorrow we change countries again and head for Sofia, Bulgaria. We are getting pretty excited for the switch up in cultures as we move closer and closer to Istanbul in a few days!
We finally got through and made it to Meteora. We just happened across this place as we heard another traveller talking about it. When we looked it up in our book, it claimed it should be the 8th wonder of the world, so we thought it must be worth a visit! When we arrived, however, we couldn't see anything as Kalambaka, the town you stay in to visit Meteora, was covered in a huge grey rain cloud. We were a little pessimistic about the weather outlook for the next day but we lucked out massively and got a cold but sunny day.
Meteora is a series of monasteries suspended on bizarre rock formations, dating back as far as 9th century. The rocks are like huge thin columns into the air and when you look up you can just see these beautiful buildings teetering on the top. We were amazed that we had never heard about this or seen pictures before because it was just staggering. How they built these sophisticated complexes on top of these rocks is beyond me.
We took the bus up to the starting point, the largest of the monasteries and felt a little queasy as we climbed the staircase carved into the rock, winding all the way round the rock face up to the monastery. Ladies have to wear long skirts, no trousers, but I was grateful for the extra warmth of adding a skirt over my jeans. We bumped into a few quintessential Greek Orthodox priest-types in their long black dresses, whilst wandering around the old workshop, museum and church. The highlight was the view from the terrace- as usual only the photos will do this justice. As we were descending the staircase something caught my eye- a priest travelling in what was like an open top cable car, suspended high above the ground, to get to the road! They have a pulley system to bring the priests and supplies up to the monasteries- saves the holy men some tiring steps....
We walked down through the other peaks and visited another monastery and a nunnery with equally spectacular views. After seeing this incredible place, looking at the dire weather forecast, eating our fill of Tzatziki and souvlaki and massively breaking the budget in over-priced Greece, we decided to skip Mount Olympus and get back into the Balkans! The easiest crossing was from Thessaloniki into Macedonia so we took a bus and spent a night there. I imagine that this place was hugely important in ancient times and would be very interesting to modern tourists....had the ruins not been built around, graffitied and basically left 'to go to ruin' (ha) by the locals. It's a real shame this has happened and we were ready to leave after one night.
We took a bus all the way up to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. We had read in the guidebook that the city had a lot of statues but nothing could prepare us for what we saw! Basically, as far as we could gather, Macedonia has had a huge cash injection from the EU. They desperately want to join the Union but Greece keep blocking their bid due to the name they adopted after the fall of Yugoslavia. Macedonia is an area in Greece apparently and even though the country agreed to change their name to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece still weren't happy. However, it does not seem to be holding the country back at all- helped by the fact they were the only country to declare independence from Yugoslavia 100% peacefully, the investment has helped develop brilliant infrastructure of roads and public transport. However, it's as if the government had some cash left over and are trying to build a modern Rome...I am not kidding, there must be at least 200 brand new statues within a square mile in Skopje! And they are the biggest statues I have ever seen- huge rearing horses, writers, politicians, family depictions- it is nuts and has to be seen to be believed.
We spent the first day meandering around the statues and new government buildings as well as the old Muslim area of the city. The next day, on the advice of our brilliant hostel owner, we took a bus to the top of the hill above Skopje to visit the cable car and 4th century church. Unfortunately the cable car was closed that one day in the month for servicing, so we started to walk to the church, a good 5km away. After a long walk we reached the church only to be told it was closed as the lead monk chap had been rushed to hospital....it was not our day, or his I suppose. So we had some lunch in a very cool traditional wood house and started the long walk back down to the city.
Yesterday we arrived in Lake Ohrid, a huge tectonic lake shared with Albania. We headed straight out to explore and saw the amphitheatre and fortress. Then we came to a very old church surrounded by ruins which is meant to be archaeologically very important to the area. However, there was a huge construction site around it as they build a university of archaeology, which seems a little counter-intuitive to me but nevermind. The lake is very beautiful and we wound down the cliffs and reached a lovely little church on a cliff face. We sat for some time and watched the sun set and the Kingfishers darting over the water's surface trying to grab some of the hundreds of fish beneath us. We've lucked out with the weather again today and it has been crisp but sunny. We have spent the day walking around part of the lake and visiting a handmade paper shop that has an original Gutenberg print.
Tomorrow we change countries again and head for Sofia, Bulgaria. We are getting pretty excited for the switch up in cultures as we move closer and closer to Istanbul in a few days!
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