A Fine Drinking Man's Country?

I have long intended to write this post but now, with a huge bloggy backlog and much else to do, I don't have the time.

But I've written it anyway.

My father retired in 1980 and bought a house beside a golf course in Portugal. 'Why Portugal?' I asked. Unlike Greece it was not a country he had visited much, or at all, and although the dust had largely settled after the 1974 Carnation Revolution the new democracy remained fragile. 'Because,' he said, 'it’s a fine drinking man's country.'

 

A younger me standing in the doorway of that house in Portugal (April 1992)

For my father was a drinking man, not an alcoholic or a habitual drunk, but a man who liked a drink, then another one and that was the evening started. I differ from him in many ways, but I share his face - I often stare into the shaving mirror and wonder what the old bugger is doing in my bathroom - and his fondness for an occasional tincture.

 

I enjoy the occasional tincture
A toast in home made mulberry vodka, Goris, Amenia, July 2003

So, staggering in my father's footsteps, here is a drinking man’s guide to a small selection of the 50 or so countries I have been lucky enough to visit. I also like eating, so I have rated them as eating men's countries, too. And when I say 'men' I only echo my father from those far off less inclusive times.

I like to eat - but I should point out that is a sharing plate
Tallinn, Estonia, July 2011

The ratings, on a scale of 0 to 5 (halves permitted), are personal, any woman or man is free to take issue with my scores, but to give a semblance of objectivity here are my criteria.

Drink: How easily available is it? How much variety is there? What is the quality of the local products? Are imported drinks available to fill gaps in variety or quality? Is the price reasonable?

Food: I am judging food from everyday rather than high-end restaurants. How easy is it to find such restaurants? Are fresh ingredients used? Is there a variety of ingredients? Is there a variety of cooking methods? Is food a cultural expression or a commodity?

So with an idiosyncratic selection of 10 countries across 3 continents here (in alphabetically order) are my scores.

1)                  China

Scoring only the Han heartland; travelling among Uighurs and Tibetans has its charms, but they do not include food and drink.

Drinking 3½

Chinese drinking culture exists but European-style cafés are unknown and bars are not obvious. Beer is widely brewed and available but the quality is poor – too much rice and too little (or no) barley. Chinese wine is best avoided - you rarely see locals drinking it. Spirits are easily available, cheap and drinkable – once you have acquired the taste. Knock-off western brands exist, too; I treasure the memory of a bottle of ‘Bushtits Irish Whiskey’, with its familiar black label.

 

A litre of sorghum based bai jiu (clear spirit) bought in Hangzhou
50% abv, it cost around £1

Eating: 4½

Restaurants of every class abound but I never cease to be amazed by the variety and quality of food that can be produced so quickly by one man and a wok working behind little more than a hole in the wall.

Even little local restaurants like these in can be relied upon for an excellent meal
Beijing September 2013

It is difficult to get a bad meal in China.

But it doesn't get much better than this - though it still costs less than a pub meal at home
Beijing duck, Quanjude roast duck, Beijing Sept 2013

Why not 5? Lack of dairy products (I do like my cheese) and their tendency to relish things....

Why am I nibbling the webbing from between the toes of this unfortunate water fowl?
Dinner with Mr Zhua, Huizhou 2004

.... nobody else regards as food (1.2 billion Chinese can’t be wrong – or can they?)

 

Scorpion soup, somewhere in Guangdong Province 2003/4
Picture credit Sian Morris

2)                  France

Drinking: 5

What could you want that they do not have? Good wine at any price level, fine beer (in the north, anyway), the world’s best brandy, pastis (a particular favourite of mine) and a huge range of other drinks. If you insist on scotch or gin & tonic, that is available, too.

Eating: 4

Shock horror, the home of European gastronomy and no 5! You can eat excellent regional dishes, but too many of France’s mid-range restaurants are resting on their laurels. Menus read better in French, but we don’t eat menus.

Spiny lobster - excellent local speciality
Cargèse, Corsica July 2006

3)                  India

Drinking: 2

Hindus are often tee total vegetarians, Muslims tee total meat eaters. Beer, though, is widely available at least in tourist areas, and passable local gin and rum in bars, hotels, and ‘wine shops’ - often disreputable looking places which don’t actually sell wine. Gujarat is dry, Kerala has reportedly put its ‘rolling prohibition’ into reverse.

Naughty boys at a 'wine shop'
Thomas and I, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, March 2016

Eating: 3½

Good Indian food is among the best in the world but finding it is tricky. Most restaurants catering for western tourists are clean and relatively expensive but dial back on the spices; desperate not to offend anyone they ultimately please no-one. Those aimed at the local market can be dull too, the same melange of spices in every dish regardless of the other ingredients, which you cannot taste anyway. But sometimes, and not necessarily in a smarter restaurant, each spice retains its individuality and the combination complements the ingredients instead of drowning them out. Thomas Mathew, our driver on our last two southern India trips, has a gift for spotting the right restaurant in an unknown town. Many of the best meals I have eaten have been in his company, and some cost less than £1 a head.

Thomas' choice in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, March 2016
Here the humble biryani is raised to a thing of joy

4)                  Iran

Drinking: 0

Iran is dry.



Tea house at the tomb of the poet Hafez, Shiraz 2000
It's the nearest we got to a drink!

Eating: 1½

I hate to say this about the land of my birth, but the restaurant food we encountered was too dull to photograph and numbingly repetitive; mountains of rice with a pat of butter, maybe some yoghurt to moisten it and kebabs, unseasoned chunks of beef, chicken or lamb, every day, sometimes twice a day. Home cooking, we were told, is much better, and maybe it is. My (Hampshire born) sister’s recent visit suggested variety has improved markedly, but as Iranian cuisine eschews garlic and all spices, how much better can it be? Pluses: breakfast feta-style cheese and the world’s finest pistachios.

5)                  Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of)

Drink: 4½

Mastika (better than ouzo, maybe as good as pastis) before a meal, a choice of wines with and an acceptable brandy after. Tikveš is the only wine region of note but it produces a range of interesting varietals including the dark, smoky and seriously underrated Vranac. Skopsko Beer, dominating the market, is a pleasant lager but hardly memorable.



Popova Kula winery, Demir Kapija, Tikveš region, Macedonia May 2015

Eating: 3½

The Balkans specialises in grilled meats but Macedonians have a lighter touch than most. Vegetables are rare but salads, often covered in a blizzard of grated cheese, abound. Being landlocked, fish only figures around Lake Ohrid, but trout, eel, carp and whitebait were fresh and sympathetically cooked.

Carp and eel, and a bottle of Tikveš Zupljanka beside Lake Ohrid, May 2015

 6)                  Mongolia

Drink: 2½

In Ulanbaatar there is good beer and, as a former soviet satellite, more vodka than is good for some locals. In the countryside there is airag, fermented mares’ milk. Good manners say you must taste – and it is not unpleasant – but drink more and you will discover it rifles through the European digestive system with destructive haste. Believe me.

Making airag, Mongolian encampment July 2007

Eating: 1

Outside Ulaanbaatar there are no vegetables or salad – digging in God’s good earth is a rude intrusion. Goat’s milk cheese is sun dried until it has the colour and consistency of a pot sherd, though it (eventually) softens in the mouth to release a punchy goat flavour. In a week, 12 of our lunches and dinners were mutton. For the thirteenth we found chicken in a restaurant in Ulaanbaatar. The fourteenth? We were too full of chicken to eat  anything!

The first step in cheese making, Mongolian encampment, July 2007

7)                  Morocco

Drink: 1½

No Muslim country can be a drinking man’s country, but the Moroccan wine industry limped on after the French departed and has recently undergone a revival. There is a full Appellation d’Origine system, but the wine is easier to find in France than in Morocco. Flag lager used to be a contender for ‘worst lager in the world’, but I am told it has improved. The Jewish community distil a spirit from date palms for which a taste can be developed.

Food: 3

Moroccan food is excellent - tender mechoui roast lamb, tagines of lamb, beef and fish with couscous, pastilla (a savoury pastry with pounded chicken and almonds), mountains of fresh fish on the Agadir dockside - but by day four you are going round the cycle again. The quality and skill on show are impressive, the variety sadly limited.

8)                  Portugal

Drink: 4½

Portugal offers the world’s most underrated wines, plus Port and Madeira, brandy, bagaçeira, and liqueurs of varying palatability. My father was right; it is a fine drinking man’s country. Why not 5? Portuguese beer, though widely available is of modest quality and limited variety.

Modest quality, limited variety - but that won't stop me
Evora Sept 2016

 Eating: 4½

I eat more fish in two weeks in Portugal than in the whole of the rest of the year. Restaurants use fine, fresh ingredients and let them speak for themselves. Why not 5? Although the variety is impressive (unlike Morocco), too many restaurants concentrate on the same old favourites; a little innovation would be welcome.



Sardines with Mike and Alison, Portimão Oct 2016

9)                  Sri Lanka

Drink: 3

Falling like a dewdrop from the end of India’s nose it might be expected to be similar, but not so. Lion lager, overwhelming the best selling beer, is available everywhere as is arrack, the very enjoyable national spirit, distilled from toddy (see The Backwaters of Kerala) and bottled at various qualities. They also distil gin and more.

Eating: 2½

Drinking maybe better than in India, but eating is not. Rice and Curry (in that order) involving three or more bowls of vegetable and meat curries with little variation is ubiquitous. Devilled meat or fish – resembling sweet and sour with a chilli kick - or ‘Chinese’ noodles dishes are the only alternative. Beef is always tough.

Rice and curry, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

10)              Thailand

Drink: 3½

Chang Beer is the sort of light, fizzy, flavourless lager I would normally avoid like the plague but, in the Thai heat, it somehow hits a spot. There are other beers (notably the more characterful Singha), Mekhong ‘whisky’ (which is not whisky), SangSom rum and several other easily available spirits.

Chang beer works its magic, Cha Am beach, November 2015

Food: 4.5

We have eaten one or two dull Thai dishes, but generally the standard of cooking is high; a red curry in Bangkok and squid with lemon and chilli beside the Mae Klong River stand out. All tourist orientated restaurant dial back (sometimes omit) the chillis while other restaurants often clock a large lumbering frame and a pale face and do the same automatically. You sometimes have to fight for your right to a chilli.

Squid with lemon and chilli (and some fish cakes) beside the Mae Klong, November 2015

Being a mathematician I put the results on a graph.

Microsoft calculated the line of best fit and I calculated Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. It was 0.69. (The coefficient is a number between -1 and +1, 1 implies perfect positive correlation, -1 perfect negative correlation and 0 no correlation) so there is a moderately strong correlation between good eating and good drinking. Well who’d a thunk it?

Debar and Back to Skopje: Part 15 of The Balkans

Skanderbeg, a Cherrywood Cannon and a Parking Violation

03-Jun-015

North Macedonia

Following the Crna Drin North from Ohrid

On our last full day in Macedonia we had to return from Ohrid to Skopje, but with no time pressure we chose the scenic route, along the valley of the Crna Drin to Debar and then through the Mavrovo National Park.

This time we took the main road to Struga before turning north up the river valley. North of the lake the land is flat, mainly agricultural though we saw a couple of small factories and some heavier industry. The intense development along the roadside included many new houses and a large hotel, though the area had few obvious attractions.

Further north the valley narrowed and became much prettier. We followed the corridor of land between the river on our right and a range of hills on our left, their summits marking the Albanian border.

In this post we travel from Ohrid to Debar and then to Skopje

Debar

Debar

After 25km the valley widened where the town of Debar sits above a small lake. From a distance Debar looked more eastern than other Macedonian towns, reflecting its overwhelmingly Muslim population. Three quarters of its 14,000 citizens are ethnic Albanians, which is unsurprising given its location but in every other city in the country Macedonians are either the largest or second largest ethnic group; here they are outnumbered not just by Albanians, but also both Turks and Roma.

It was coffee time so, eschewing the by-pass, we drove into town. The centre was busy and traffic disrupted by the work of turning the main shopping street into a pedestrian precinct.

Central Debar

Skanderbeg

We managed to park and took a short stroll. The prominent statue is of Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero (see also our visit to Tirana). In 1440 he was appointed the Ottoman Sanjakabey (military and administrative commander) of Debar district. Rebelling in 1443 he spent the next twenty-five years leading a largely itinerant army of 10,000 Albanians, Slavs and Greeks to a series of unlikely victories over the Ottomans. He never succeeded in setting up a viable Albanian state, but his actions seriously impeded Ottoman plans to expand into Europe.

Skanderbeg, Debar

We drank our coffee on a terrace overlooking, if not the town's main square, at least its largest traffic intersection. Lynne was not quite the only woman but, as usual in Muslim areas, the clientele was overwhelmingly male. They were, by and large, the sort of elderly men who have the time to sit drinking coffee on a working day – just like me. It was good coffee and very cheap (30denar - 35p), as is often the case away from tourist centres.

Lynne has coffee, Debar

The Monastery of Sveti Jovan Bigorski (John the Baptist), Mavrovo National Park

We continued north through the Mavrovo National Park following the valley of the River Radika which flows southwards from Mavrovo Lake to Debar Lake and thence into the Crna Drin.

Village in the Mavrovo National Park

After a few kilometres we detoured up the valley side to the monastery of Sveti Jovan Bigorski (St John the Baptist).

From the higher ground on a hot sunny day we had a fine view across the valley where, despite the heat the mountain tops were still streaked with snow. We were about to enter a Christian monastery, but judging by the minarets the villages on the far side were mainly Muslim.

Village across the Radika Valley from Sv Jovan Bigorski

As we walked up the drive to the monastery we were accosted by the guardian who collected the entrance fee and ensured we were properly dressed. Apparently my shorts were acceptable, but Lynne’s long trousers were not, so he provided a wrap-around skirt.

The monastery was founded in 1020 by Ivan I Debranin (John of Debar) who had been a bishop under Car Samoil (see Ohrid post), but accepted the post of Archbishop of Ohrid after Samoil’s Bulgarian Empire fell to the Byzantines (no distinction between Bulgarian and Macedonian existed between the arrival of the Slavs in the 6th century and the mid-20th century). The monastery was destroyed by the Ottomans in the 16th century but restored two hundred years later and vastly expanded in the 19th century. Sadly many of the older buildings were lost in a fire in 2009, though much else survived. The monastery has a church, a traditional priest’s tower, exactly like the tower we had seen at the Popovo Kula (Priest's Tower!) Winery and monk’s dwellings.

Sv Jovan Bigorski, Mavrovo

A Cherrywood Cannon

Outside the church is a cherrywood cannon. In the April Uprising of 1876 the Bulgarians attempted to throw off the Ottoman yoke and, being short of conventional materials, resorted to constructing cannons from cherrywood. Although the first to be fired (predictably) killed the gunner but no-one else, this did not deter the manufacture of many more though few were ever fired - and even fewer were fired twice. They became symbolic of the heroic but doomed uprising and were subsequently incorporated into several civic coats of arms and parked outside places of national importance like Sv Jovan Bigorski.

Cherrywood cannon, Sv Jovan Bigorski, Mavrovo

There are impressive, though recent, frescoes in the church portico (where photography is permitted) and inside the church (where it isn’t). Various relics have also survived include fragments of the True Cross and body parts of John the Baptist, Lazarus and various other saints, some well-known, others deeply obscure. It is wondrous how these things have been neither lost nor damaged. Holy icons (including one with mystic healing powers) have also miraculously reappeared after being destroyed in fires or when the monastery was sacked. You may belive that, if you like.

Frescoes in the portico, Sveti Jovan Bigorski, Mavrovo

Inside, behind the relics and the icons, is a magnificent 19th rood screen carved by masters Makarie Frckovski and the brothers Petre and Marko Filipovski. Three of their fabulously ornate and detailed screens survive and we had seen another at Sveti Spas in Skopje. There is a photo of that in the Skopje post, though it is not mine, there as here I was too closely watched by those policing the no photos policy.

Sv Jovan Bigorski, Mavrovo

Back to Skopje

Returning Lynne's borrowed skirt we continued up the valley pausing for a picnic lunch by Mavrovo Lake. Then we left the national park and found our way to the Mother Teresa Motorway (yes, really!) which took us back to Skopje. We re-entered the city by the same route as we had left it a week before, found our way back to the same hotel and parked the car roughly where the hire company rep had parked it in a ‘dead end’ beside the hotel.

I parked the car where the green Volkswagen is in this picture

It was a hot day, and after checking-in a cold beer seemed appropriate so we strolled back down the 'dead end' road to a café.

A Parking Violation in Skopje

We had been sitting on the café’s deck behind a low hedge for some twenty minutes when I saw a white car moving down the road. ‘That’s a white Chevrolet like ours,’ I said to Lynne as I realised it was on the back of a truck. Even when I noticed it had a small dent on the passenger door 'just like ours' I did not immediately twig that it actually was ours and it was being taken away by the parking authorities.

Back at the hotel the receptionist suggested that we should have put it in the underground car park. ‘What underground car park?’ I asked. They had not told us about it as they had not known we had arrived by car, I had not asked about it as I could not see anything wrong with where I was parked - and the car had sat there for 24 hours a week ago without problem. It was, apparently, something to do with resident’s permits, and there was a sign on a lamppost, not an international No Parking sign, but a written notice in Macedonian. Ignorance, of course is no excuse, but in my defence I could point out that the sign over what I subsequently learned was the underground car park does not mention the hotel - the unlikely named 'Hotel Duvet Centre'.

The underground car park. Nowhere does it mention the Hotel Duvet Centre.

The reception team were helpful. They phoned the authorities, found out where the car was, did some special pleading so we only had to pay the £35 towing fee and not the fine and then called a cab.

The pound was not far away, under the railway arches by the station. As we arrived the clouds that had been gathering since we arrived in Skopje decided to spoil what had hitherto been a perfect summer day by unleashing a downpour. Retrieving the car was as painless as handing over that much money can be and we drove back to the hotel. This time I did put it in the car park. Behind those gates is a creaky lift which takes car and driver to a subterranean vault in which the hotel had half a dozen marked spaces. Well who knew that?

Later we went out (on foot) for out last Macedonian dinner and last bottle of Vranac - I should seek out a source when I get home.

04-Jun-015

A Long Walk to the Wrong Railway Station, Skopje

We had an afternoon flight so in the morning we decided to visit the railway station. The clock stopped at the instant of the 1967 earthquake and the station has been left as a memorial to those who died.

Lynne said there was a sign to it by mother Teresa's house, which was not far away. I pointed out that we had been there the previous day to collect the car and could walk there relatively quickly as, unlike a taxi, we would not have to detour over the river and back to avoid the pedestrianised area. It was so simple I did not even bother to look at the guide book.

After a longish walk on a hot morning we found the bus station easily enough and could see the railway station sitting on top of the embankment but could find no entrance.

Skopje Railway station, this one is not a memorial to anything

Eventually we discovered a small passageway between two ticket booths in the bus station that led into the railway station. It was largely a building site, indeed I am not sure whether it was open or if we should have been there at all, but we had a look round anyway and walked up to the empty platforms. There was no memorial, indeed nothing remarkable, except for us being entirely alone in a capital city railway station.

Pausing en route for a riverside coffee we trailed back to the hotel. Only then did I look at the guide book and discover that Skopje's old station, the earthquake memorial, was somewhere else entirely; the railway does not even go there anymore. Lynne’s words were a little harsh – but justifiably so.

Riverside walk and the Archeological Museum, Skopje

To Skopje Airport and Home

After a light lunch we drove to the airport. Despite the poor sign-posting, driving in Macedonia had been easy, indeed a pleasure, as there was so little traffic. This does not apply to central Skopje, which is busy, though the quality of sign-posting is no better. Signs that did exist were often late and required last minute manoeuvring across several lanes of fast moving traffic.

By luck or skill we reached the airport without mishap and toured around looking for the car hire garages. With the aid of a friendly policeman we realised there were no garages, just offices inside the terminal. Lynne went in while I sat in the car - I had no intention of being towed away twice. Failing to find the relevant office she asked the nice man at the Sixt desk. Our company’s only office was in the city centre, he told her but kindly offered to phone them. ‘No problem,’ said the woman on the phone. ‘Leave the car unlocked in the main car park, and place the keys in the boot.’ And so we did. I presume we would have heard if it had been stolen.

Despite the minor problems at the end we really enjoyed our first trip to Macedonia and second to the Balkans. I finished the final Croatia post three years ago by saying it was a region we hoped to return to. I finish this post with the same feeling.

The Balkans

Bosnia and Herzogivina (May 2012)

Part 1 Sarajevo (1): The Old Town, The New Town and That Assassination
Part 2 Sarajevo (2): The Seige
Part 3 Mostar

Croatia (May 2012)

Part 4 Dubrovnik (1): Around the City Walls
Part 5 Korčula
Part 6 Dubrovnik (2): Inside the Walls

North Macedonia (May/June 2015)

Part 7 Flying into FYRoM
Part 8 Skopje
Part 9 The Matka Canyon and Stobi
Part 10 Prilep and Bitola
Part 11 The Mariovo and Lake Prespa
Part 12 Ohrid, the Heart of Slavic Macedonia
Part 13 Ohrid to Albania The East Coast of the Lake
Part 14 Struga and Ohrid Trout
Part 15 Debar and back to Skopje

Struga and Ohrid Trout: Part 14 of The Balkans

Round the North of Lake Ohrid to Struga, then back for an Ohrid (Style) Trout

Struga

North Macedonia

Struga

After a leisurely breakfast we set off for Struga. The town, about half the size of Ohrid is 15km away at the northernmost tip of the lake. We could have followed the main road, but despite the by now expected lack of signs we managed to find the minor road which hugs the coastline for most of the journey.

Ohrid to Struga and on round the western shore to the Albanian border

The Beaches and the Source of the Crna Drin

Struga is considered a down market resort in comparison with Ohrid. Its main attractions are what are described as its two ‘sandy beaches'. The cafés certainly struggle to give the right impression…..

One of Struga's beaches

…and the water is reputedly clean and undoubtedly warm, but on close inspection the beaches are neither sandy nor particularly attractive. Over 40% of Struga's residents are Albanians, and in accordance with their Muslim sensibilities the two beaches are called the 'male beach' and the 'female beach.' My photographic evidence suggests they are not actually (or no longer?) segregated, though for a warmish morning in early June there were surprisingly few people about.

'Sandy' beach, Struga

Between the two beaches is the official source of the Crna Drin (Black Deer) River. We had seen an alternative source the day before on the other side of the lake but although there are claims of a discrete flow through the lake, I find it hard to believe that the stream from springs thirty kilometres away is really the same river. There is a marked drop in level between the lake and the river and the water rushes through in dramatic fashion.

The waters of Lake Ohrid pour into the Crna Drin River, Struga

Literay Struga and the Miladinov Brothers

Struga was not always a down at heel backwater. In the 19th century it was the birthplace of the brothers, Dimitar and Konstantin Miladinov, poets who thought of themselves as Bulgarian but jointly created the modern Macedonian literary tradition. Konstantin Miladinov wrote Tăga za Jug (Longing for the South) in 1860 while in exile in cold, dark Russia. It is one of Macedonia's best known and most loved poems and one verse name checks both Struga and Ohrid.

No, I cannot stay here, no;
I cannot look upon these frosts.
Give me wings and I will don them;
I will fly to our own shores,
Go once more to our own places,
Go to Ohrid and to Struga.

Since 1966 an annual poetry festival has been held in Struga in memory of the brothers and has attracted an impressive guest list that includes Seamus Heaney, Pablo Neruda and Ted Hughes.

Coffee on Struga's Main Pedestrian Thoroughfare

We walked beside the river which is lined with cafés to the main pedestrian thoroughfare through the town. This, too, offers plenty of places to pause for a refreshingly cheap espresso, so pause we did.

Pedestrian street, Struga, looking modern and western (despite my lurking presence on the edge of the picture)

It is surprising how different the same street can look depending on the people you catch in the photograph.

Pedestrian street, Struga. The same street from almost the same place a few moments later looking distinctly eastern

There was little else to see in Struga so we strolled back to the car which was parked near the War Memorial. It is an extraordinarily ugly piece of concrete that looks unloved and uncared for. War memorials in the Balkans are problematic: though happy to celebrate the defeat of fascism, Macedonians are less happy to celebrate the victory of Marshall Tito's partisans which ensured Macedonia remained a part of Yugoslavia until the country unravelled a decade after Tito's death.

War Memorial, Struga

The Church of St Michael the Archangel, Radožda

From Struga we drove south and west, keeping to the minor road that hugs the coast until we reached the sizable fishing village of Radožda, the last settlement in Macedonia and the end of the road.

'Sleepy' is an overworked adjective for such places, but it seemed to fit here. Old men dozed on benches outside their houses or chatted with their neighbours across the street, raising their voices above the honking of frogs in the lake. Women busied themselves with a little desultory sweeping using brooms shaped like garden rakes.

The village sits between the lake and a rocky cliff up which a set of metal steps leads to the Church of St Michael the Archangel, the finest of several 13th century cave churches in the area.

Lynne starts up towards the Church of St Michael the Archangel, Radozda

The climb was hard work in the warm sunshine, but we were rewarded with a good view over the village. The headland on the right of the picture is well inside Albania.

Radozda from the steps up to the church

The church, like many others in Macedonia, has some impressive frescoes. Sadly it was locked, but paintings on the outside have survived several centuries of Macedonian weather remarkably well. It was a peaceful place, though even up here we could still hear the frogs in the lake below.

St Michael the Archangel, Radozda

There was also a small external chapel where Lynne lit a candle. Payment for the candles, 5 or 10 dinars depending on size, is left to trust, as is the tray containing the money. I find this a refreshing sign of people’s expectations in this out of the way place.

Lynne lights a candle, St Michael the Archangel, Radozda

Ohrid

Ohrid (style) Trout

A candle lit, we retraced out steps to Ohrid. The sun had been pleasantly warm, but as we drove back the clouds began to gather, the temperature fell and the windscreen became sprinkled with rain.

Salmo Letnica is a species of brown trout endemic to Lake Ohrid and related rivers. Unfortunately (for the trout) it is delicious and overfishing has brought it to the edge of extinction. Fishing is now banned in the breeding season in Albania and completely in Macedonian waters, but this protection is not enough and stocks continue to dwindle. Ohrid trout no longer appears on menus, but Ohrid-style trout does, though this seems to mean little other than grilled brown trout - which is a fine thing in its own right. We decided to dedicate lunch (and most of the early afternoon) to the bounty of the lake.

We chose a restaurant on the lakefront in the old town, sitting on the terrace over the water, behind a perspex screen to shield us from the by now unnecessarily chilly breeze. Lynne ordered the trout but I went for plasnica, tiny lake fish dusted with flour and gently fried - in other words whitebait.

We started, as had become our practice, with a glass of mastika. Lynne's trout was simply grilled and served with chips, a lettuce leaf, some beautifully sweet onion slices and a couple of pieces of shredded carrot - mainly for decoration. Macedonians are keen on salads but appear to have little interest in vegetables. My plasnica came just with lemon and high quality chunky bread, which was all it required.

Trout and small fishes, Ohrid

The wine list was confined to the produce of a single winery and at the waiter’s suggestion and against my better judgement we opted for a Chardonnay/Riesling blend. For the second day running we had encountered a waiter who knew his stuff, it was a fine match.

Lynne likes her fish 'not messed about with' so the trout was exactly how she likes it. The plasnica was good, too, treated much more sympathetically than the heavy handed ‘batter and deep fry’, the fate of whitebait in pubs at home.

At the end we had room for dessert and both chose baklava. The simple nuts and honey in pastry lacked the texture and subtlety of Greek/Turkish baklava, but it was still very enjoyable.

After lunch we poked around the market buying presents to take home and a picnic for our travels tomorrow. We had enjoyed our four days in Ohrid - it is a town which was well worth that much time, if not more.

Ohrid at dusk

We felt no need to eat again that day, but we did wander out in the evening to sit in a café, sup a beer and watch the world go by - and also to take a pleasing picture of Ohrid at dusk.

The Balkans

Bosnia and Herzogivina (May 2012)

Part 1 Sarajevo (1): The Old Town, The New Town and That Assassination
Part 2 Sarajevo (2): The Seige
Part 3 Mostar

Croatia (May 2012)

Part 4 Dubrovnik (1): Around the City Walls
Part 5 Korčula
Part 6 Dubrovnik (2): Inside the Walls

North Macedonia (May/June 2015)

Part 7 Flying into FYRoM
Part 8 Skopje
Part 9 The Matka Canyon and Stobi
Part 10 Prilep and Bitola
Part 11 The Mariovo and Lake Prespa
Part 12 Ohrid, the Heart of Slavic Macedonia
Part 13 Ohrid to Albania The East Coast of the Lake
Part 14 Struga and Ohrid Trout
Part 15 Debar and back to Skopje