Our Intrepid crew boarded a minibus at 0900 and set off for our second destination, Lake Ohrid. We had to climb a mountain range and start coming down the other side. We stopped halfway for a traditional Macedon treat, fried dough or mekici, with a coffee. The place we stopped at is well-known for it and there were several cars and buses already there, but the operation is pretty slick and we were soon eating them, me with ajvar – a Macedon sauce/condiment made from red peppers, and Nicola had hers with cheese. We have ascertained that when they say cheese, it generally means feta-style. They can’t actually call it feta because EU and Greece and regulations and…and…
We arrived at Hotel Tino around half past midday. Our rooms weren’t ready so we stored our luggage and went for a walk with Danijela along the lake front and a bit of the town, before stopping for lunch at a lakeside taverna where we had a selection of dips including ajvar and makalo, which Danijela described as “like aioli”. <Morgan Freeman> But, it was not like aioli </Morgan Freeman>. It was very garlicky. We sread it on bread. I also had plasica, which are fried whole - a little too large to eat like whitebait, so I cut the heads and tails off. Nicola tried the local kolbasi (which just means sausage), which was a bratwurst-style thing.
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| Local spreads for local people |
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| Plasica, or "little fishes" as they appear on the menu |
After lunch we continued our walking exploration of the town. We stopped in at a traditional paper-maker, who demonstrated the paper-making process then printed something on a Gutenberg press. We visited one of the two best shops for buying Lake Ohrid pearls from – two old families are the original makes of LOP and closely guard the secret of their manufacture. Other versions are available. We also stopped in at a little shop to try the world’s finest baklava – according to Danijela, at any rate. It was good – not too sweet, and with different (mostly nut-based) toppings. I’d need to eat all the baklava in the world to come to a definitive conclusion.
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| It's ridiculously picturesque |
By the time we got back to the hotel we had just half an hour before our next excursion: a boat trip on the lake. This had been brought forward from tomorrow as the weather forecast wasn’t looking too flash for Tuesday. We set out amid a cloud of moths which accompanied us for most of the way, and saw the shoreline from the water, reaching the church of St Jovan, then going over to the other side of the lake where the expensive villas and hotels are. “Why aren’t we staying in these?” we asked. “Because they’re not in the town centre” Danijela told us, which is fair enough, actually.
One of our group, Carrie, had
spotted a wine tasting place on our perambulations and suggested we went there
in the evening. We headed up there with Tim and Jackie, and tried four different
Macedonian wines, accompanied by a board of cheese and charcuterie which, given
the amount we’d already eaten today, sufficed for our dinner. We finished up
the tasting with a small glass of rakia, the local firewater, mixed with a bit
of brandy, presumably to make it palatable.
Afterwards we walked back to the hotel and had a couple of beers and wine in the bar, where Carrie and Tim set the world to rights.
































