Waking up in Ohrid again was great. We were a bit refreshed after our soaking from the rain last night! Our goal this morning was to make it to Bitola, to see a bit of Bitola, and pick up Lizzie to join us for the day.
There was a bit of a hitch in our plans. In Macedonia it is the law to have your headlights on at all times. When I picked up our rental car I struggled with figuring out how to turn on the head lights. I figured out (or so I thought). What had really happened was I had turned on the fog lights and didn't realize that the headlights had been burned out since picking it up from the dealership. Unfortunately National Car Rental in Macedonia is not customer friendly and their response was to take it somewhere and they would pay us back when we got back to Skopje. After 4 hours we found headlights and replaced them ourselves. (fast forward to when I returned the car, the company did not pay us back for the lights, it was a good thing we replaced them ourselves because we would have been out for the money as well, do NOT use National Car rental because this was not our first problem with them). Unfortunately this meant a late start... but we made the best of it!
Bitola as always was beautiful, but we only stayed for a short time so that we could get to the Roman ruins south of town, Heraclea Lyncestis. The city was built by Macedonian King Phillip 2nd in the middle of the 4th centry BC. The ruins are from the Roman and early christian period. The city was an important strategical town during the Hellenistic period. The main Roman road of the time, Via Egnatia went through Heraclea Lyncestis. Like many Roman cities there was amphitheater built in the city but it went out of use in the late 4th century AD when gladiator fights were banned due to the spread of Christianity. This area like many in Macedonia has layers of civilizations in the area.
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| floor mosaics |
Food is a very important part of traveling, so it was off to Prelip for some of the famous Thai food! Prelip's restaurant is well known throughout Macedonia. The owner is from Thailand and has moved to Macedonia so it is authentic!
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| Thai Curry Soup |
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| Cass's Pad Thai |
Tomorrow we had a special trip planned...so it was straight to our hotel, Popovo Kula in Demir Kapija. We checked in took a bit of time for some relaxing and then headed to the restaurant in the hotel. We did the traditional meal with shared salads, grilled stuffed peppers, Sarma and bread for the appetizer. Our main dishes were beyond delicious... What a wonderful restaurant!!!
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| Sarma- grape leaves filled with meat and rice |
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| Peppers, bread and salad |
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| Pork with leaks and roasted peppers |
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| Pork with plum sauce |
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| Meat with a mushroom sauce |
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| Peach chicken (that is an entire peach on top) |
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| Dessert to share! |
We would be staying here at Popovo Kula for 3 nights and after the amazing meal, the beautiful hotel rooms, and the wonderful service we were more than excited about it!!
Lesson: Customer service is not a strength of all companies abroad!
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