Lake Ohrid: the almost vacation

We made it to Ohrid relatively painlessly by a 3 1/2 hour bus trip. At the bus station in Ohrid, a few taxi drivers offered to rip us off excessively but we bypassed them in favor of a metered taxi. There was no one at the hostel when we arrived so Amir went looking in the most obvious spot, the bar next door, and found the owner having a drink and chat with the bartender. Our room was a good deal lovelier than either of us had expected, complete with en suite bathroom and a balcony overlooking the lake just a few meters away. Sadly, we only got to enjoy it for one night before being awoken at 8:30am the next morning to the lovely sound of jackhammering going on in the alley next door. We found out that no construction is allowed during the summer tourist months and we had just missed the end of summer mark.

By 10am, we had relocated to a new hostel just a few blocks away with a room almost as nice with the added bonus of a kitchen, not that we had any plans to cook. The lake was absolutely beautiful and quite large. You could see straight through to the bottom where all the tiny fish were nibbling on our feet and calves. It was like a fish spa but much less expensive.

We spent our few days at Lake Ohrid mostly dealing long distance with a plumbing issue back home so the totally relaxing vacation within a vacation ended up not materializing. In spite of being somewhat chained to our laptop and Skype for those few days, we did manage to enjoy swimming in the lake, racing to the buoy and back, reading on the patio under an umbrella, and gorging ourselves in oodles of shopska salads (tomato, cucumber, black olives and shredded white Macedonian cheese).

When we left Ohrid, we took the bus all the way back to Skopje and then boarded a train (late, as usual) bound for Thessaloniki, Greece where we intended to spend the night and catch a train to Athens the next day.