Rural Albania at its best

From the mountain town of Dardhe to the lakeside town of Gorcia on Lake Prespa we bring you these scenes. There is no "back to the earth here". Life has never been far from the earth. These places are along the south eastern side of the country. We went there and were probably the only tourists this season, avoiding the heavy crowds these 3 weeks on the sea coast. 

The host of the Dardhe guest house we stayed in. Behind him is the plum tree, used mostly to make Raki. Peter calls it a "digestive" but I call it a very strong liquor!

This is one of their smaller sheds for the BBQ ing and hens

 We had 3 rooms at this guest house and ate breakfast looking down a gorgeous valley in the mountains.

Natural spring water throughout the town

Streets in town and locals who took an evening walk with us

Hard to see but in the NW corner is the Albanian flag and the year 1926

As if this wasn't enough of a feast for the visual, we then drove to Lake Prespa and had a park ranger take us around this large lake. Three countries form the perimeter of the lake, Macedonia, Greece and Albania. Never saw a soul.

Apparently this was a monastery where the exiled monks were sent along the shores of the Lake

View from the cave (sleeping quarters) at the top

Another church up in the rocks with 14th century icons

There must have been some very bad behavior going on among those monks! This is the second monastery.

We spent the night in the most picturesque town of Gorica, on the Lake

This town is a mile or so from Macedonia. In the 1930s, King Zog of Albanian sold a section of the Lake to Macedonia and took other parts for himself. Most of the locals speak more Macedonian, their husbands work in Macedonia and the schools aren't sure what to teach. Below are the scenes from the village at days end.

Early morning walk around Gorica- Industrious people

The Albanian hay stack

Sunday morning conversations

Breakfast of homemade cherry jam, eggs darn fresh, feta cheese, fresh cucumbers, tomatoes and mountain tea

This the the source of the underground spring that takes the water from this lake and feeds Lake Ohrid

We took the tertiary road back home...That means dirt, huge pot holes and mega dust!

Last stop is an Ottoman Bridge (circa 400 years old)

Picnic on the banks of the river

Great weekend with friends, Albanian and American, chatting up politics, healthcare and planning the next adventure.

Weekend in Macedonia

 A small country running along the entire eastern border of Albania - population 2,000,000

40% of the population are Albanians and 60% Macedonians, not always jiving together

We visited our friends who have moved from Tirana to Skopje, Mark and Madlyn. Great hosts!

This is a city that is putting a huge new face on their capital city of Skopje

An earthquake in the early 1960s and very dirty river  made a city that needed a face lift

. There are multiple statues of Alexander the Great at all stages of his life

500 million Euros later, there are statues of animals, angels, every Macedonian who has notoriety in the city. This is sort of the MGM lion but there are classical ones as well.

One downside is that the Albanians are not represented and the Greeks are not happy that the Macedonians have claimed Alexander the Great for their own.

The night show, light show and water show are quite the scene!

There are statues like these swimmers, a modern day statue touch

This country has got it going on when it comes to wine. Delicious. I found a chardonnay just like Sonoma Cutrer

While my photos are ok, check out our friend's photos of Skopje at www.kickedinthebalkans.blogspot.com

Our next stop was a visit to a vineyard and ancient city of Stobi

This was a large city from the first to the seventh century

Buried in the ground, this was the refrigerator (2,000 years old!)

Fancy homes had these reliefs around the courtyards

Entrance to a large home. Pillars supported the roof over the courtyard

 

So here is a little archeology lesson in mosaics. This was typical of the Pagans. Paganism reigned from the 1st to the 3rd century AD. Any signs of Christianity were punished severely. Then in the 4th century, the Romans decided that Christianity was the region's and rulers chosen religion. So, all the Pagans were slaughtered, temples covered over with Christian churches. This mosaic above is the simple design that the Pagans used for decorating floors.

Notice the more complicated mosaic from the Christian period

This is another example of Christian mosaic in the Baptistery (where folks were baptized)

No explanation needed here!

The gorgeous drive back to Tirana, we went through Mavrova National Park

Capped off the trip with some Ohrid lake trout at a seaside restaurant. Albania is the tiny strip of land on the top right

Another wonderful trip to the politically complex Balkan countries, but always treasures from history, landscape that many countries would love to have and friendly folks to make the visit memorable.