Beautiful Lake Ohrid and an Authentic Macedonian Room...Granny's On The Couch!

Testing water
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July 21-22, 2008

Ohrid, Macedonia

(Matt)

Our guidebook certainly made a point that Ohrid was covered up with local tourists in the Summer, but we were skeptical after seeing Skopje, the empty capital, and Prelip, which seemed like it sees virtually no tourists, though Prelip is in the "off the beaten track" section of our book.

One of Granny's stashes under chair in our room
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As it turns out, the guidebook was right on. Ohrid is an entirely different scene. Set on a beautiful tectonic lake on the border with Albania, this is THE place to be in Macedonia, having all the amenities that you would expect from such a place. We took a cab to Ohrid from Prelip because if we hadn't we would have had to waste almost 5 hours in Prilep playing cards waiting for the next bus. The cab was affordable but not cheap, about three times more than the bus tickets. We don't have much time now, and we have to make good use of it.

House in Ohrid
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Once we arrived in Ohrid, we walked to the center of town and hit the first pizza restaurant that we saw. After a much needed lunch, I left Amber there and walked into the Old Town through one of the main pedestrian boulevards leading to Lake Ohrid. It was clear that this was like no other place we have seen in Macedonia. It was actually crowded with people, packed with people, mostly wearing skimpy swimsuits and carrying beach gear. The closer to the lakefront that I went, the more people there were.

Jelly breakfast
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In Ohrid, the issues that we have had in the rest of Macedonia--i.e., almost no hotels, almost no restaurants, and almost no businesses catering to tourists--have disappeared. This town has it down. It is set up for visitors, and we are enjoying it.

My first duty was to find a place to stay, and it was very difficult. Actually, Ohrid has been the hardest place to find accommodations of any place this entire trip. Before I finally found a place, it took me hours of going door to door trying to line up a "home stay" with people that do not speak English and do not have a lot of patience with my inability to speak Macedonian...or at least Albanian.

Matt and son of the house
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We lucked out, and I found Ohrid residents willing to give up their bed. We are staying with an old couple that speaks literally not one word of English between the two of them. Luckily, I first inquired at the wrong house, and the neighbor Anna, who spoke great English, helped me to negotiate the deal, which was 20 Euros (~1200 Macedonian Dinars) per night. This was a bargain because I found a hotel with a vacancy for 100 Euros per night, which is considerably more than our entire daily budget.

Matt at market
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Our room is on the second floor of the house and is clearly someone's room who lives in the house but has been removed from the room for the two nights that we are there. The bed is comfortable, but the room has no A/C and no fan. So it is very hot and stuffy. The worst part about staying in these people's home, beyond having no means of communicating even basic greetings with them and feeling like unwelcome interlopers, is the fact that everyone in the house--we estimate that between 4 and 6 people live in the home based upon the number of shoes laying around--all use the same toilet downstairs. Plus, the washing machine for the house is in the toilet. So the odds of uncomfortable run-ins goes up considerably during washing cycles.

Ohrid scene
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We basically have found that we leave early and stay gone for as long as possible, and we do most toilet activities at public restrooms in town. It's weird but the price is considerably less than one of the only hotels that had a room on the lake front.

(Amber)

Our room is hilarious. Granny's pants and shirts are hanging on the door, there's a can of WD40 on the dresser, there are a dozen eggs under a chair, and there are several bottles of liquor hidden all around the room. There are also old teddy bears, dried flowers, and magazines from the 1970s. But it's a great location, and our door sits about 30 feet from a beautiful old church.

(Matt)

The location is very good. Our window looks out to an 11th Century Byzantine Church, and the house is on the waterfront, not that we hang around the house long enough to take advantage of that. The exchanges with this old couple are very awkward...they cannot get it through their heads that we speak no Macedonian. It seems like they think if they speak to us enough, we will start responding appropriately. It's weird. The room is in the heart of the Old Town, however, where most of the ancient Orthodox churches are found. So it's good.

(Amber)

The couple is incredibly nice. They just don't understand that we don't speak Macedonian, so they keep trying. And it's awkward for other reasons.....the man, a fisherman by trade, only wears his tiny speedos...and he is not a small guy. That's all he wears. His big belly is quite tan though.

So I went down to the bathroom on our first day there, and he was standing there shaving in his speedo. He was smiley and genuinely gregarious...and he opened his home to us, but it's still weird to squeeze by him in his skibbies in the hall on my way to the bathroom!

(Matt)

Amber was not with me on my quest to find a room, and she did not adequately appreciate my explanation that we were very, very lucky to have any place at all in Ohrid. I went to retrieve her at the restaurant. When we were on our way to the house and I was explaining what the deal was, I was not feeling the love...at all.

(Amber)

He always "feels the love"...he might not have been feeling appreciated enough only because he told me there was a cat, and I'm deathly allergic to cats. I had visions of just mainlining my inhaler and sleeping in cat hair. Luckily, our room was fine.

(Matt)

Room aside, Ohrid is great. The lake is beautiful and surrounded by green mountains. The boats used in the lake are mostly tiny skiffs, little dingies with two mounted oars....no yachts here. There are only a couple of beach areas, mostly just gravel, but they are packed with sun worshipers.

Ohrid is less about the beaches and the water than it is the attitude of summer fun. Everyone of every age is in the spirit of just being out in the sun in their bathing suits enjoying their vacations, even if they never get wet. There are plenty of swimmers, don't get me wrong, but that's not really what this scene is about.

At night, the Ohrid streets are completely filled with people, showered and dressed up in their evening fashion, ready to party, and this goes on until about 4am from what we could hear. It is a really neat place, and it stands in stark contrast to Skopje, which was mostly dead. I think it is telling that the musician Levy Kravitz, who is making a stop in Macedonia in August, is playing in Ohrid, population 50,000, rather then Skopje, population 600,000. It's the place to be.

(Amber)

Ohrid was beautiful and peaceful. Macedonia for me will always be a place of gardens (everyone has one - flowers, fruits, veggies - gardening is a way of life), friendly people who literally go out of their way to help you and are humbled that Americans would visit their home, mountains and lakes.....and a place where being able to act like you know exactly what everyone is saying to you...no matter what language it's in....not only comes in handy...it's a must.

For photos, click here: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AatmbZk0ZtFIW4&notag=1