Macedonia

We are in Turkey now, and our routine of cycle touring has gotten in to a rhythm such that I hardly think about blogging anymore. Overall I think this is good because we are really living the experiences as fully as we can, but I do like to have a written record of our trip and to share with you all, so I’m taking some time to sequester myself in our hotel room and catch up on blogging.

I don’t have anything specifically negative to say about Macedonia or Bulgaria, but I will be honest and say they weren’t highlights of the trip so far. We had some amazing experiences in both places, and both were safe, beautiful, and friendly. But there was nothing that really stood out as unique to us compared to the other countries we’ve visited.

In Macedonia, we crossed over from Albania along Lake Ohrid and headed towards the city of Ohrid. Not being much for tourist crowds, we were a bit disappointed to find the city felt like a big tourist trap to us. Almost all the people there were on vacation, and the restaurants and cafes were not great quality. But we took a day to get some local currency, a SIM card, and brush up on Cyrillic. The language is not as similar to Serbo Croatian as we’d hoped, so a lot of our words didn’t I work, but almost everyone we met spoke good English. We considered staying another day because we were both very tired from all the intense cycling in Albania, but our budget hotel didn’t have air conditioning, and it was really hot, so we continued to Bitola.

Bitola was an interesting town and a great place to spend a rest day. It has a lively cafe culture, a few historic sights, and a laid back comfortable and friendly vibe. From there we headed east to Bulgaria, and we spent a few days cycling through farmland and hills and unremarkable cities. The most exciting things to happen were a 1 year old birthday party at the restaurant we ate at, and meeting a cyclist racer who was racing across Europe in the Transcontinental Race. He took a minute to rest and check his phone and we said hi.

We missed the sun flowers in full bloom, so instead we’ve been watching them dry in fields that go on as far as you can see.

In the country side, we saw lots of crops growing, including these peppers, plums, tobacco, and lots more.

Tobacco drying. We saw hundreds of these racks all along the road and in cities.

Some of the roads we were on were paved with cobbles for kilometers! I’ve never seen so many cobbles, and they are not fun to ride on, but the traffic is always light on these roads.

Okay, you knew it was coming. The food! The food in Macedonia was amazing actually. Some of the best food we’ve had in the Balkans, and very affordable. Meat heavy as usual, but with more emphasis on stews, some Greek influence, and really tasty!