Sept 3 - Today we head southeast along the shore of Lake Ohrid. The van is full of Dutch tourists, for some reason Ohrid has a lot of them. Pass a number of beaches, all gravel. Lake Ohrid is deepest, and oldest, lake in Europe, with a maximum depth of nearly 300 meters. Just south of Trpejca, we turn off the main road up into the Galičica NP.
The park encloses the mountain range between Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa.
A view west down the switchbacks we just ascended.
A lot of short, mixed trees on the west side of the mountain range. At this elevation the temperature has dropped a fair bit.
The town of Trpejca.
At the mountain pass, and above the treeline. The rocks here are mostly limestones, intercalated with conglomerates and some other sedimentary beds.
Go forth, my child, into the Abyss.
Coming down the east side of the mountains. At the tree line, it is thick oak forests, which give way to dense pine stands as we approach the lake.
Lake Prespa is quite different from the other lake, despite being 10 km away. It is very shallow, with marshes and a muddy shoreline. Hence, there are virtually no ‘beachside’ resorts here.
There was a handy hydrologic cross section of the two lakes in the park. Lake Prespa is about 150 meters higher elevation, and water from it flows underground (helped by the karstic limestones) to lake Ohrid. A lot of water, in fact, constituting 75% of the inflow into Lake Ohrid (the rest by direct precipitation and rivers).
Drive around the north end of Lake Prespa and down the east side. Pass many apple orchards. Stop in Slivnica to visit a museum of sorts, basically a farmhouse where the owner has collected antiques for many years.
Included are many women’s traditional costumes. These two are local to the region around the lakes
A Muslim dress.
Some Turkish influence on a number of these dresses.
A closeup of the necklace, with some old silver coins from the Balkans, along with a few Ottoman gurush.
One thing I have seen a lot of in the last few days are drying peppers, much like what is common to see in New Mexico.
We head up a small road to a village called Kuratica.
Here, we are finally remote enough that the houses are not all new construction, but rather the old stone walls that were common years ago.
This is standard fare for junkers in North Macedonia. The make is Zastava, which was a Serbian car manufacturer that went bankrupt in 2017. Similar in appearance to a Yugo.
Eat lunch at a farmhouse restaurant. A big spread of simple dishes, set in the relaxing silence of the hills. Then back to Ohrid.
Looking down from our balcony in Ohrid, to the owner’s garden. A lot of diversity in what they are growing. Have seen this starting in BiH, homes often have diverse gardens, as though residents instinctively gravitate toward some degree of food security.
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