Godspeed to Olympos, Mon, 18 Sep 2023 | written by Simon
Simon at a Lake, Temple in Europe, North Macedonia

I have to say that the North-West of Macedonia is a sharp contrast to what I’ve seen before. Suddenly, there is rubbish everywhere. And stray dogs. I guess the dogs spread out the rubbish, too. There were piles on the car park I slept on, lots by the road, even by the lake. It’s a real shame, because the landscape is stunning.

There was a point on the way where I was worried I’ll run out of fuel. I took a small detour to see what seemed like a cute little mountain village. After some 10km of steep ups and dows on a ground road, I got there… and immediately the fuel lamp lit up. Which is weird, because I was on two bars just half an hour before. I think it’s probably because on the steep roads the sensor wasn’t picking up the level right, but I got a bit spooked – who knows how much I’m burning on steep mountain roads, will I manage to the nearest gas station?

So I didn’t really spend as much time in Bar as I would like to, but fortunately I did manage to refuel in time. In fact, I didn’t even put in as much fuel as I’d think, so perhaps it was a sensor issue.

In any case, the lake views were nice, but the water level in the lake was very low, the water a bit muddy, and the wind sharp – so definitely not a swimming opportunity. The famous landmark here is a ruined and flooded church – it was cool, though wasn’t flooded because of the low water levels. I guess it would be in the spring or early summer. The village of Mavrovo also didn’t have much to offer. I was hoping to visit the cave, but it was closed (turns out you need to schedule a tour visit, though I doubt they’d bother for a single person). There seem to be many walking tracks around, as well as ski slopes, but neither was something I wanted.

In the end, I drove off. I’d consider the day quite wasted if not for the splendid Bigorski Monastery of St John the Baptist which I saw next. A large, functioning male monastery is famed for it’s massive and intricately carved wooden ikonostas, and wow, is it amazing! I don’t think I’ve even seen such complex and intricate wood carving on such a scale, it’s stunning.

I picked up more hitchhikers here, by the way. The windy path up the monastery has bends too narrow for buses, so a big tour of pensioners from Serbia had to climb up all the way. I picked up two elderly ladies who seemed particularly overwhelmed by it – they were overjoyed and couldn’t stop thanking me.

In the afternoon, I had a couple calls to make, so I hung out in Debar for a while. They’ve got some rich suburbs there, villas and limos and all that jazz.

Thereafter, I set on the long road through Albania to Montenegro. To be honest, I am not sure if the concept to drive through without stopping was a good one – perhaps I should have just embraced what the road gives me. I drove in the dark, but it was all windy mountain roads and I suspect there was much to see there. Ah well, it’s done now and I will certainly be back here soon enough.

Tonight, I’m staying on some small side road overlooking the Rozafa Castle in Shkodër, not far from the border with Montenegro, where I’ll get to tomorrow.