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3 May 2023 - Day Trips in Novi Sad, Serbia and Sremska Kamenica, Serbia
We were both feeling tired last night from the stress of obtaining the car insurance at the Serbian border and locating the apartment. I woke up late and felt like I was getting a cold and by the afternoon I knew I had one.
As our apartment is very close to the centre of Novi Sad we decided to explore it today and set off at 11.00. We crossed over the Danube to see the imposing Petrovaradin Fortress which mostly dates back to the early 18th century.
It is free to wander around Petrovaradin fortress, but there is a charge for the museum which we weren't interested in visiting. There were a lot of teenage school children there and the girls spent most of there time preening themselves and posing for photos!
We spent about an hour at the fortress before walking back over the river to the centre of Novi Sad. Most of the buildings in Novi Sad date back to the mid to late 1800's. Some people say that you can spend a whole day exploring Novi Sad. However, by 14.00 we felt that we had seen all the major sites.
See my blog "Novi Sad, Serbia: Travel Guide" for further information.
It was too early to go back to the apartment so we took a 20 minute bus ride to Sremski Karlovci. This is a historic town 11 kilometres south east of Novi Sad. The Bradt guide book says the town "is one of the most attractive in all of Serbia thanks to its unspoiled character and wealth of Habsburg period architecture".
We spent about an hour looking around. It is a nice enough town, but I am surprised that the Bradt guide book rates it so highly. We got back to Novi Sad at around 16.00, bought some groceries and relaxed.
4 May 2023 - Rest Day in Novi Sad, Serbia
We woke up to grey skies in rather dreary surroundings and luckily my cold wasn't any worse. I had planned to do a 1 hour drive north to the town of Subotica. However, as I read up about Subotica I realised that it probably wasn't as special as the Bradt guide book made out.
Subotica is very Hungarian in terms of both its' buildings and population. Unfortunately the main buildings of interest only date back to the early 20th century. Since we have a long drive tomorrow to Tetovo in North Macedonia we decided to have a rest day in Novi Sad.
Another option had been to take the train into Belgrade. We decided not to go as the Bradt guide book used phrases such as "dreary", "Eastern-bloc greyness" and "grim monoliths of high rises" when describing it!
In the morning we walked south along a nice path along the Danube until we got to the Strand. The Strand is a park by the Danube that has a sandy beach and is apparently very popular in nice weather. It was deserted today as the weather is cloudy.
In the afternoon we walked north along the Danube and then had another quick walk around Novi Sad.
5 May 2023 - Novi Sad to Tetovo, North Macedonia
We set off for Tetovo at 09.00 in sunny weather. After driving for about an hour we discovered that the printout of our Airbnb reservation for Tetovo didn't have the owner's phone number. As our cell phone package doesn't include roaming outside the EU I was worried we would have problems meeting up with the owner.
Luckily the next service station had free wifi and I messaged the apartment owner and he quickly sent his phone number. Now I could relax and enjoy the drive. The scenery was nicer than in northern Serbia and it became hilly and rural.
It was a 2 lane toll motorway most of the way through Serbia. Unfortunately one of these lanes was closed because of road works for many sections.
There wasn't much traffic, but every time they closed a lane they reduced the speed limit from 130 kms an hour to 60 kms an hour. No one did less than 80 kms an hour in these sections! If I had driven at the speed limit I would have been very unpopular.
We were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the border of Serbia and North Macedonia as there was hardly any queue. We had feared that it would be like the border between Croatia and Serbia where it took us 1 hour to pass over the border.
North Macedonia's immigration and police were very helpful and spoke English. As we didn't have car insurance for North Macedonia they held our passports until we had purchased the insurance at a nearby booth.
It cost Euro 50 for a 15 day policy and it only took 5 minutes to purchase it. In comparison it took us 40 stressful minutes to buy the car insurance for Serbia and it cost Euro 230!
As we got near to Tetovo we had very impressive views of snow covered mountains. We reached Tetovo at 16.30, but as usual our TomTom satellite navigation system took us to the wrong area. Google maps is much more accurate and got us to the apartment. Luckily I was able to make a roaming call to the apartment owner and he came out to meet us.
Our apartment is on a road just off the main shopping street. It was very busy and all the parking spots were taken. We decided to pay Euro 20 for 3 days of parking below the apartment, but it wasn't an easy place to park.
In the evening we decided to eat out. We had chicken burgers and chips and it was nice eating out for a change.
6 May 2023 - Tetovo, North Macedonia
In the morning we drove 17 kilometres to the Popova Sapka ski resort, which is 1,000 metres above Tetovo. There was still a lot of snow on the hillsides, but not enough for skiing and all the chair lifts were closed. Both the road up, and the ski resort, were very quiet.
There are a number of hikes that can be done here in the summer time. We didn't come prepared to do a hike and there was probably too much snow anyway. As we couldn't get a good view of the mountains from the ski resort we walked half an hour to a nearby hill.
In the afternoon we looked around the vibrant town of Tetovo. There are very few sights to see, but it was nice walking around and seeing the locals go about their daily routines. We went into the Green market and a very friendly man gave us some tea on a stalk. We have no idea how to use it though!
The main site in Tetovo is a mosque called the Sarena Dzamija, which means coloured or painted mosque. It is small but very beautiful. It was built in the mid 15th century. See my blog "Tetovo & Skopje, Macedonia: Travel Guide" for information about visiting Tetovo.
In the evening we bought a small rotisserie chicken for Euro 4 and ate it in the apartment. It was delicious.
7 May 2023 - Day Trip to Skopje
The drive from Tetovo to Skopje only takes about 40 minutes as there is a highway most of the way there. There are tolls on North Macedonia highways but the rates are very low. There were 2 toll stations and each time we had to pay MKD 40 (Eur 0.63), or Eur 1 if we didn't have MKD.
I had read about some cars being broken into at Skopje car parks so we emptied the car as much as possible and tried to choose a good parking lot. I always use Google reviews to select a car park before going somewhere as it saves a lot of hassle at the destination.
We parked at a multi storey car park at the Vero Shopping Centre in Skopje and lucked out as parking is free at weekends. It was only a short walk into the centre of Skopje. I had planned to mainly visit the old Turkish area. The rest of the city is fairly modern due to earthquakes and the last big one rocked Skopje in 1963.
To reach the old city we had to walk a while through the modern part. We walked along the north bank of the Vardar river for a few hundred metres until we reached Stone Bridge and it was very impressive with many statues. We could see that modern Makedonija Square on the south side looked very nice and decided to visit it on the way back.
The old Turkish area starts just north of Stone Bridge and there were plenty of signs of tourism and quite a few tourists. That was quite a surprise as in Tetovo we seemed to be the only tourists. However, Skopje is the capital city and there is a lot more to see than in Tetovo.
It was a hot day and the temperature got up to 31C. It was a bit difficult finding some of the sights and we became a bit tired, hot and dehydrated. We visited the covered market, Church of Sveti Spas, Kale Fortress and the Mustafa Pasha Mosque. The only entrance fee was for the church and that cost Eur 2 for the two of us.
On the way back we visited the Makedonija Square area and I ended up liking this modern part of Skopje more than the old part.
See my blog "Tetovo & Skopje, Macedonia: Travel Guide" for further information about visiting Skopje.
8 May 2023 - Tetovo to Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia
There are 2 roads going south from Tetovo and Skopje to Lake Ohrid. They both start on a 2 lane highway to a town called Gustiva. The main road continues straight down to Lake Ohrid, but a more scenic road branches off to the west and goes through Mavrovo National Park.
The Bradt Guide book recommends taking the longer and more scenic route through the Mavrovo National Park and describes the Park as a little Switzerland. As it only involves an additional hour of driving we decided to take this scenic route.
We set off at 09.30 in sunny, but hazy, weather. The Mavrovo National Park is very forested and in the distance there are views of snow capped mountains. There weren't many places to stop on the way and we continued past Mavrovo Dam until we reached the Monastery of Sv Jovan Bigorski.
The current structure of the monastery dates back to the 18th century and is well known for the relic of St John the Baptist. It is an attractive monastery in a scenic and tranquil setting.
There are about 30 monks who live at the monastery and one of them kindly showed us around the ornate chapel. Unfortunately no pictures can be taken of the interior of the chapel. There is an Eur 2 entrance fee to enter the chapel, but it is free to walk around outside.
The Bradt Guide Book mentioned that the village of Janche was amongst the prettiest ancient Mijak villages. We therefore entered it on our Tomtom sat nav system and found ourselves driving about 3 kilometres up a steep and narrow road with numerous hair pin bends.
It was a bit hairy and luckily we only met 1 car coming down. The village at the end wasn't very special. I think the sat nav system took us to the wrong village as I later saw in the Bradt Guide that Janche is very accessible and the village we drove to certainly wasn't!
Our next stop was at Lake Debar. We were shocked at how much plastic was both on the lake shore and floating in the lake. North Macedonia doesn't seem to have a good rubbish collection system and people throw their rubbish everywhere.
Our last stop offs on the way to Lake Ohrid were to the villages of Vevcani and Oktisi. The Bradt guide book says that Vevcani is "a truly beautiful village of old style houses" and that many of the inhabitants are in local dress.
We only found a few old buildings and no one was in local dress.There were several very nice new houses built to a high standard. Bradt doesn't seem to have updated their guide book very well! We decided to skip the village of Oktisi as a result.
We reached our apartment at Ohrid at 15.30 and were very pleased with the quality of it. See my blog "UK to Greek Islands Accommodation - Part 1".
After doing some shopping we walked along the esplanade to the old centre of Ohrid. The weather was still very nice and it was fairly busy. We were very impressed with Ohrid and looked forward to exploring it further tomorrow.
9 May 2023 - Sightseeing in Ohrid
The forecast was for rain and unfortunately it was correct! We woke up to rain. By about 10.30 it stopped raining and we set off to explore the sights of Ohrid. See my blog "Ohrid Town, North Macedonia: Travel Guide" for useful information when visiting Ohrid Town.
There are many churches in Ohrid and the first one we saw was the Church of St Sophia which was built in the early 11th century. We didn't pay the Eur 3 entrance fee to look inside but just admired it from outside.
We walked a bit further north along the coast to the beautiful church of Sv Jovan Kaneo which was built in the 13th century. Our guide book says it is the most frequently visited church in Ohrid. There were lots of people there but luckily most of them were leaving. Again we didn't go inside and saved another Eur 6!
There is a steep path from the Church of Sv Jovan Kaneo to Tsar Samoil's Fortress, which dates back to the 10th century. The entrance fee is Eur 2 and at the entrance there was a sign warning people to be careful. We soon found out that it is because the steps along the fortress walls were extremely slippery when wet. The views were good despite the poor weather.
From Tsar Samoil's fortress it was a short walk to the 2,000 year old Roman theatre. It was free and it didn't take long to see it. A little bit higher up from the theatre is the Church of Holy Mary Perybleptos. We liked seeing it from the outside, but decided again that it wasn't worth forking our Eur 3 to go inside.
We walked down to Ohrid's old town and stopped at a restaurant to look at the menu. While we were looking at it started to rain heavily so we decided to have lunch there! We both had a North Macedonian dish of stuffed peppers and enjoyed it.
We spent the afternoon in our apartment as it continued to rain. In the evening we walked in light rain southwards along Ohrid's promenade in order to stretch our legs. The bad weather was very disappointing.
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