Beards and crucifixes in Albania

Tan lines...

Macedonian missive

Jesse and I are now at the monastery of St Naum, situated on a lake in
south-western Macedonia. We're not sure exactly what St Naum did
beyond get martyred sometime in the tenth century, but he left behind
a rather beautiful little church, where we have been the latest
lighters of candles and sayers of prayers in a tradition going back a
thousand years. Apparently the icons here are known for their healing
of the mentally ill - I'm afraid to report that as yet neither of us
has been healed to the extent that we've decided to abandon this bike
trip.

The monastic community here has all but disappeared, sadly, and the
whole area has been converted into a holiday camp for weekending
Macedonians. These are a rather strange breed, we have decided, but
the upside is that our spandex looks relatively tame next to the
Macedonian male's swimwear of choice.

In order to get here we had two climbs, one just across the border to
get to the first of our lakes, and the second climb taking us up over
12km to 1600m in altitude. At the top the mountain fell away almost
vertically into the blue lake below; the only other people up there
with us were the local hang-gliders.

We've now done over 500 miles in 5 days since Istanbul, and tomorrow
we will head across yet another border to Tirana, the Albanian
capital.

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Macedonian lake district

Live from Florina, Greece

As I type we are in a bar on the main drag of Florina, a town right
near the Macedonian border (which we cross tomorrow). For some reason
all the inhabitants of this small town appear to be crowded onto this
one street, partying for no discernible reason other than it being a
Thursday or, as Jesse might have it, that we're in town. Either way,
we stand out as the bearded foreigners, doubly so given that we lack
faux-hawks or euro-mullets; evidently we are simply not cool enough to
hang here.

We did however have a very scenic day of riding, clocking in at a mere
135km after yesterday's epic. Early in the day we passed Pella,
ancient capital of the Macedonian kingdom and home to Alexander, then
moved on through lush farmland overloaded with peaches and nectarines.
Jesse was tremendously excited by what evidence he saw of the various
workings of the agricultural system; I was more inspired when we hit
the rivers and mountains later in the day. Unfortunately the mountain
scenery came with the added bonus of some climbing, during which we
both had cause to curse the greek road builders for omitting the
switchbacks.

We arrived in Florina before dark - a novelty so far since jesse
turned up - and found an amazing taverna for dinner and two bottles of
the house red (which, appropriately enough, was also home made). Now
back up the hill to the king alexander hotel, and on tomorrow to
Macedonia proper.

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Near Macedonia

To Thessalonika

260km was the day's tally, bringing our three-day total to 640km.

At one point today, after 100k or so and with a long way yet to ride,
we saw an old man floating quietly in the beautiful blue water of an
inlet beneath us. Looking at his serenity, then back at us, caked in
sweat and with more to come, Jesse's comment was "maybe he knows
something we don't." Amen to that.

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