So, we got into Sofia late in the night of Saturday and on Sunday we walked around Sofia in the morning to get our car. We saw some sights on the walk and then got the car and started out on our journey. Briefly recapping it for you and then below is a bit more detail, we travelled across to Macedonia, and drove through the capitol of Skopje which seemed more like an African market, and then down south to the Albanian border where we spent tine at the UNESCO-protected Lake Ohrid. Then we continued to Albania and around the country and then back to Ohrid. Then up to Kosovo and across Serbia...wait, strike that, we were denied entrance, so back across Macedonia and the last 2 days in Sofia and Plovdiv. Hope you enjoy the pics. This is most of the fun stories I think... I'll start you off with our first story though ,and definitely our most adventurous.
In Vienna, we met a Bulgarian living in UAE. On the plane, he showed us photos and the such, and offered to take us to our hostel in Sofia. We hesitatingly accepted. After his friend picked us up, he told us we needed to go somewhere first, where he proceeded to drive in the outskirts of the city and to some dark apartments where his friend apparently lived. It was at this point we thought we were goners, cuz i thought that this guy was too nice to be real. But it ended up, that he just was that nice. He drove us and helped us out so much and even wanted us to cancel our plans in Albania and go skiing with him in the Bulgarian mountains. Well.. maybe next time. It was a great trip full of good moments.
This is called just the Russian Church, but also cool
Here is the President's Building straight ahead adn to the left is the Party Building, maybe parliament, I think. Or maybe it's some old Communist building.
This is the most famous site in Sofia I think. It's the Aleksander Nevski Church. And that's me with the church. Our rental car agency was a little past this so we were able to take a short walking tour around the area.
Lots of interesting and nice acrchitecture in Tirana. The mayor is kinda an artist so he approves all this cool new stuff. Though driving around Tirana isn't really the most advisable thing as I would suggest. Actually, it's almost outright suicide, but it was an experience that I'm happy I had. I feel more experienced now because of it. It's the craziest thing though when you're driving and 4 lanes suddenly turns into 2 lanes and nothing has street signs so you don't really know where you're going to begin with, and also not to mention that people don't really mind the fact that their country as crosswalks, nor do they mind that the streets are full of cars, s o there are also people just walking across the street everywhere. Oh yea, and let's not forget the lack of stop signs, but really it didn't really matter too much cuz even the drivers didn't bother to look at them. And oh yea, to top it all off, throw a bunch of potholes in the mix...everywhere...
But Albania was a lot of fun. We met with some of Joseph's friends there and saw lots of sweet things. We even got a cassette to listen to during our drive of biggest hits in Albania in the last year (Am. hits that is).
We spent time at Lake Ohrid both before and after our sidetrip to Albania. It was definitely worth the 2 days we spent there and def coulda spent more time there. Even the whole week. Cool. And us Americans are highly liked here. I was stopped in Ohrid for having a Bulgarian car, but once i showed him my passport, he was all smiles and told me to continue and have a nice day.
This is the kind gentleman that helped us so much. This is Kosta, from Kosta Apartments. He was maybe one of the nicest guys ever. And he really liked saying my name. Everytime I saw him, he had to scream my name and smile. He was a really nice and hospitable character and really happy. It was perfect our accommodations. And the prices were a steal.
This is the Church of St. Bogorodica Perivlepta. This is really famous and beautiful. We accidentally stumbled upon this our first night in Ohrid just walking around. We were looking for a place to eat and we saw this church. Thought we'd have a look, so we started to walk in, but as we were walking in, there was a wedding procession coming out. We quickly got out of the way, but not before I got the glare from the bride. It was funny though.
Some pictures around Lake Ohrid
This is the walkway we took one morning on a hike to the church you will visit next on the continuation of reading.
All over the Balkans they have a huge problem with stray dogs. It's really sad, but it's true. They're everywhere. But, we met this one little cute shaggy mangy dog one morning on our beginning of our hike and he decided he was up for a little adventure. He followed us up the hills and travelled with us the distance until we finally got rid of him near the theater
In one of our mornings, we walked to this church that is one of the most beautiful places in Ohrid. It's called Saint Jovan. This is the entrance.
This is maybe one of my favorite photos. This was really a cool place. This little church on a small cliff peninsula overlooking the town and the lake. Really cool
Us with St. Jovan chapel
The ancient ruins of Ohrid. maybe 4th or 5th century
This is the church of St. Clement. His remains are here apparently. We didn't look. They have here ruins of older churches and stuff and the church is just an added bonus I guess. The people were really friendly. I mean the workers were.
This is the theater in Ohrid which is 2000 years old. It was used for poetry and such but after the Roman invasion, they took out the first 8 rows to use for blood sports. You can see the restaurant maybe above the theater is called the Gladiator. Kinda ironic...
The fortress atop the hill overlooking Ohrid
Starting the travel back from Lake Ohrid, we drove north back to the capitol of Skopje and we continued farther than our years would have ever dreamt. We continued north and north until we entered the "Forbidden Land" of Kosovo (the newest country in the world according to some countries).But as we entered through the customs, we noticed this interesting little sign
After crossing into Kosovo, nothing of interest really happened. There were times when we would drive past armored tanks or something of that instance, but it was pretty uneventful. In most of the Balkans they don't really have road signs anywhere in the city, so we drove to Pristina and got easily lost, but the people there were friendly enough to not tell us how to get back on track (cuz they didn't really speak English), but rather they actually had us follow them to the highway. It was great. We decided to continue on to the Serbian border and back to Bulgaria from there, but we had a minor setback. We got to the Serbian border and the border guard just started yelling at me for something I did wrong. It was in English, but I'm still not sure what he said. Then another guy came and took our passports and came back tellin us that we can't enter Serbia through Kosovo, we have to do it from another country (I guess they just don't like the whole independent Kosovo thing, so we turned around and the 1st guard came back and said Sorry, you can enter... So I was again confused. Did they change their minds again? No, the guard really said "can't", but was more or less a jerk about it, but it was cool. Just added about 3 hours or 4 to our arrival time back in Sofia. Had to back track across all of Kosovo and then across Macedonia and back
Funny story. It's night time driving back, about 9 and we're in Bulgaria and the roads are horribly marked. At one point, we were 30 km from Sofia, but we thought we were there so we were tryin to find the center and all that but we just couldn't. I stopped frequently to ask and they'd always say a few km. We finally made it there but it didn't look like the center. It was strange. Then I asked someone where in Sofia we actually were, but they didn't speak very good English but they were having fun with it. We were in Pernik, not Sofia. I came back to the car and told Joseph we weren't in Sofia and told him we were in Belgrade. He started freakin out until he realized how ridiculous that possibility was. It took us more time to drive around in circles until we realized we had to turn around to get to Sofia, but it was good, and we finally made it to the hostel 6 hours after I had originally told them.
We travelled to Plovdiv on our last day which is a pretty big city in Bulgaria. It was really cool but trying to find the Old Town was a big pain, but we finally did. This is the Church of St. Constantine. It was cool. well, actually this is just the wall outside of the church, but it's cool enough. Driving here we had terrible fog on the highway but it was no problem
This is the old ancient theater in Plovdiv. It's the main attraction in the old town and it's pretty cool and worth it i guess to see, but it did take us about as much time to finally find the old town as it did to actually get to Plovdiv which was an hour and a half from Sofia. But It was cool. we walked around and then ate at this kinda small but good restaurant which was cheap as always.
So, in conclusion, the trip was a lot of fun. We met a lot of fun people at our hostel the last 2 nights and had some good chats. But it was really nice to get back home. After 1200 miles of driving, and after not driving for a few years that much, I was ready for a relax. I'm pretty sure I slept most of the plane and bus rides back. So, hope you enjoy the pictures and stories.
