This year’s vacation was to Greece (for another round on Olympus), North Macedonia (because it is right next door), and BC (because it is on the way). We stopped in Sydney, Australia on the way there, and Sidney, BC on the way back.
Greece, August 14-18
The flights were a bit of a doozy: Wellington to Sydney to Vancouver to Toronto to Athens. I calculated 42 hours from Wellington to central Athens, with longest connection 2.5 hours in YYZ. It was two tickets with a split and 110 minute connection in Vancouver. Fortunately we didn’t have a misconnect.
- Photos: Not Naoum Ridge, August 15
- Photos: Ascending Xerolakki, August 15
- Photos: Mytikas summit, August 16
- Photos: Barbalas Ridge Descent, August 16
The first order of business was to head to Olympus, where Mario, Nikos, and I planned to get up to the Muses Plateau via the Naoum Ridge. MP would join us at the Apostolidis Refuge. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a white-out going on at times, and we weren’t confident in routefinding in these conditions, so we went back down to the car and then back up via Xerolakki, arriving at the refuge just after sunset.
After a night at Apostolidis, MP and I summited Mytikas and hence Olympus. A bit scrambly via Louki, but nothing we couldn’t handle. I wonder about the roped guided parties. I guess the guide is pretty confident that he can catch a fall, but yikes.
We then all descended, in the end, via the Barbalas Ridge. Routefinding also not trivial, and at times, a class 3 scramble. The last part of the class-2 trail was not at all obvious (maybe it no longer exists) and we took the long way around, including road walking, but we got there eventually.
After a brilliant dinner at the inn in Petra (so much food), we slept at the inn again and then went to a legit Byzantine castle nearby, Platamon. MP misses castles. There aren’t any real castles in NZ.
We had about a day in Thessaloniki before continuing to North Macedonia. This included a bird tour by Michael of SKG Bus, a pretty interesting guy. He’s not really a birder but can hire one if you ask. Anyway, we did see a bunch of birds. Would have been good to have a 100-400 lens but mine is too heavy to bring all around North Macedonia, so I just had my very average 55-210.
Thessaloniki has some pedestrian areas but also a lot of car-dominated heavily-trafficked streets which I very much do not love. We stayed on Egnatia, which is a car-dominated street. There is also the White Tower, which we admired from the outside (ascending it at the end of our trip), and the waterfront area.
North Macedonia, August 18-24
So, the question was, where should we go after Olympus? I like the Balkans, and the obvious choice for geographical reasons was North Macedonia, just a few hours from Thessaloniki. I had also realized that one could fly back from Thessaloniki to Canada (via Munich), since my friends had done it earlier in the summer.
It’s not really possible to take the train from Greece to North Macedonia. One could connect from the bus to the train, but it’s unclear that this is a win. We took the bus from Thessaloniki to Skopje. It’s a 4h bus, including a lengthy wait in traffic at the North Macedonia border crossing. After the crossing, there was a chance to visit the depanneur over the border in North Macedonia, and we chatted with some Americans who were touring the Balkans, as we waited for the bus to leave the depanneur.
Skopje, August 18-19
I really liked Skopje; the large bazaar area is fully pedestrianized and lively. There was also a weird thing with statues and fountains that were put up in 2012 or something for an enormous amount of cash. Walking from the bus station to the bazaar was quite suburban and car-centric, but there were still large trees and not so much power centres. Skopje also had many public water points, which is important with the heat. And then there were the statues of Skopje 2014, which were kind of bonkers.
Skopje also has a prominent castle. We visited it. The castle walls have been rebuilt. Inside the castle walls, there are some restored buildings, but mostly it’s just an area inside the walls with trees and grass. There were some people doing a garbage cleanup (though in general there was quite a bit of litter).
Shopska salad (tomatoes, cheese) was a food highlight from North Macedonia. Also qofte-like foods, as one would expect from the region.
Korab (and Tetovo), August 20
I got sidetracked writing the Korab report. It’s written, but we’ll post it after this post. I haven’t put the pictures into the report yet. Here are highlights from the report.
After Olympus, I thought that Mount Korab would be a good destination. It is the highpoint of both North Macedonia and Albania, at 2764m. It can be reached from either Albania (via Radomir) or North Macedonia (via Strezimir), but since we were visting North Macedonia, we’d go via Strezimir.
Following recommendations on the Internet, I rented a 4wd. I found one at Relax Rent-a-Car in Skopje.
We stopped at the Colourful Mosque in Tetovo, which was on the way. Parking in Tetovo was chaotic but we managed. Had to wait till the end of prayer and then visited the inside of the mosque. It has lots of painted frescoes and is somewhat modest as an attraction.
We also got a guard dog barking outside for much of the night, but I guess that just comes with the territory. The hotel also comes with ponies and cats.
If we hadn’t had to lug our stuff around North Macedonia, I understand that camping is also a possibility, and gets you an hour closer to the trailhead on hike day.
We started at 7am. The first part is still on a pretty big track (4x4s could do it for sure) and in the forest. Soon enough, though, the forest ends and we’d be above treeline for almost all of the walk. We passed by some run-down buildings and a stream just after treeline.
I’m not quite sure I would call the walk up relentless, but there was quite little relenting in the climbing up, except for a long traverse in the middle. I looked at the traverse and hoped I wouldn’t have to go back down into the valley. Fortunately, it was pretty much a true traverse.
The trail is well maintained, with no scrambling required. Not quite a sidewalk, but definitely much easier than the Barbalas Ridge we’d done a few days ago. It’s easy, but 16km round-trip with 1300m elevation gain isn’t completely easy. There was also an indicated winter route which obviously had less avalanche exposure (since it went on top of the ridge); probably the terrain was rougher or it was otherwise more difficult than the summer route.
We arrived at the summit at 11:30, so about 4h30 after starting. There were 17 people on the summit when we were there, with all but 4 of us coming from Radomir on the Albanian side. We had a leisurely 50-minute lunch, eating one huge sandwich and assorted snacks, and chatted with a group of 7 from the UK who were doing a walking holiday.
The descent was pretty much the same as the ascent, except that we were like, “gee, that was a lot of climbing to get up there.” I took a few more photo stops for birds. I wouldn’t have minded having my 100-400 lens, but that’s an extra 700g for a small number of bird shots. One can spot birds atop rocks and posts sometimes.
We did drink all of our 3L of water. I could have treated some water from the stream, but by that time, we were close enough that we just went back to the car.
We also crossed a group of 21 which was walking up pretty late in the day: like 1pm or later. Sounds like an opportunity to see the sunset on the way down to me. At the parking lot, there were quite a few more cars than when we had left in the morning (there was only us and the other group).
Our moving time, excluding lunch, was 7h30, with 3h for the descent.
We drove back to Skopje, got a place near the bus station, and I had a bit of an adventure returning the car; see the full TR for details.
Soon after arriving at the apartment, we decided that Bella Pizza would be a good dinner, so I fetched something pide-like, with quite hot bell peppers, for 480MKD. The staff said the picture online wasn’t quite right, but it was cheese and bacon. Yes, I like cheese and bacon. It would have been better if I had remembered which floor the apartment was on, but I got there eventually, and we enjoyed the pide. Pizza Bella deserves its 4.9* on Google Maps. And, as I was doing all the faffing, MP was doing our laundry, so we’d have more clean laundry. Good deal.
Overall, a successful hike, two high points, and a bunch of life maintenance. What more could one want?
Ohrid, August 21-22
Ohrid is a resort town, with mostly local tourism (e.g. people from Turikye, which is maybe a 9 hour drive away). I guess the main point is that it is on Lake Ohrid, a deep lake which also borders Albania. We had a day in Ohrid, leaving the next day for Bitola.
Apart from the lake (which has a bustling lakeshore scene and some modest beaches in town; apparently better ones further out), there is a bazaar, many Orthodox churches, and Tsar Samuel’s Fortress (another castle). Once again, the bazaar is quite human-friendly, and there are indeed lots of humans on foot.
I could imagine going back for a day on the lake or a bike ride, but it really was kind of overrun with tourists. It was less hot than Skopje though.
Just before leaving, we got a ride on the semi submarine. In principle you can look below the surface of the lake, but there’s not a lot of visibility. One might see eels and fish. It was nice to be on the top side, though; basically, a short lake cruise. Could do a longer cruise.
Bitola, August 22-24
Luxury! Two nights in the same place! But we had to get there first. A short 1h bus ride took us from Ohrid to Bitola, where we checked in at Robevski Luxury Rooms. We definitely had much more space than in Ohrid; there was a living room separate from the bedroom. The decor was… fancy.
We visited Heraclea Lyncestis, with more ruins, including an amphitheatre, but also lots of well-preserved mosaics. There is a page on the Internet where someone is really excited about the mosaics. We appreciated them, but we’re not experts. You could definitely make out octopuses, phoenixes, doves, etc.
Also on the agenda was the Pelister Eyes. This did not require a car rental; we had gotten a taxi driver from the bus station upon arriving in Bitola to save a 2km walk, and he drove us to the hike (and also to Florina in Greece). Probably we could’ve gotten a ride back to town from the hike.
The Pelister Eyes was our second hike in a North Macedonian national park; this was the Pelister National Park. The nice thing is that even if it’s pretty hot at sea level, it’s not hot in the mountains. The temperature was great. It was still a 19km hike with 1100m of elevation gain, so not quite nothing, but again, well-maintained trails (with litter).
The first eye (lake) (Golemo Ezero) has a hut next to it. It was pretty popular that day, with dozens of people there. I’m not sure where they came from. We didn’t see them on the trails.
There were also horses. I think the deal is that the horses bring stuff up to the hut and then are left to graze. There was one horse which was much more interested in stealing human food.
We reached the second eye (Malo Ezero), about 40 minutes further, and then walked back to the trailhead.
Also in Bitola I finally managed to get a Euro power cable. Thessaloniki, a much larger city, was unable to provide. I also have this cable at my house, of course, but wasn’t there.
Last night in Thessaloniki, August 24
Back out via Thessaloniki without a stop back in Skopje: taxi to Florina (Greece), visited the museum there, and then took the train to Thessaloniki, getting there in the evening. Had excellent food near the White Tower, which I visited this time. MP went out on the Black Pearl (one wonders about licensing). Then back out to an average airport hotel for our flight the next morning.
British Columbia, August 25-27
After flying across the Atlantic and North America, we got to Vancouver, where we would do yet another hike. Some of the hikes are at the end of rough Forest Service Roads and may require high clearance. Fortunately, Elfin Lakes was not one of them. Super scenic and easy hike. High effort to reward ratio; it was still 20km and 710m of elevation gain, but really it was a first-class trail. We saw many people and 4 bears.
MP had read on the Internet that Victoria was the Canadian city most like Wellington; I was skeptical. But we went there for a day and a night, taking the ferry from Vancouver in the morning.
I find Victoria pretty inaccessible (it’s on an island), but I guess it is less far than New Zealand. Reports from the locals were that it is kind of a sleepy place. Lots of tourists. We had lots of sushi in BC, did not have poutine (thought about it), and did have tapas. Water taxis are cute. The geography means that if the orcas swim into the bay, then you can wait and see them coming out. So we saw 7 orcas.
I feel like tourism in North America is pretty expensive these days, and didn’t really like the $260/night cost of our hotel in Victoria. It was a great room, though. But there aren’t really cheaper options there. NZ seems cheaper most of the time.
We stopped at Sidney, near YYJ, on the way out, and went to the coast. Victoria is small but Sidney is a tiny village. Anyway, YYJ is decent (though lounge-less), and we got on the planes back to YVR, BNE, and WLG.