Getting into the Balkans

Walked around the hotel this morning, think the streets looked better at night.
We drove through the countryside to Kavadarsi to visit Tikves, the largest winery in the south east Europe. The area we were travelling through, is known as the “bread basket” of the country and also has a large Asian tobacco industry. Macedonia is one of the eight major tobacco producing countries in the world. Virginian tobacco is illegal to grow.
We had a great tour and lovely lunch with samples of their wines to match the course.
Macedonia‘s largest exports are minerals and metals. We saw huge deposits of marble and how the roads are deteriorating, from the heavy trucks carting their heavy loads of marble to be exported.
We then drove through more countryside to UNESCO listed Ohrid for the night. Ohrid is on a large lake. The lake holds the boundary of 3 countries-Macedonia, Greece and Albania. It is believed Lake Ohrid is over 3 million years old and has a unique ecosystem. The lake and city of Ohrid are both World Heritage Sites.
Crops here-wheat, barley, corn, tobacco, grapes, peach, apple and apricots.
Still hot and sweaty when we arrived so a few of us jumped in Lake Ohrid for a dip. Very nice.
Tea at Momir, a restaurant on the lake. Going to sleep with the sounds of lake waves was lovely.Read more