ALBANIA – POGRADEC

APRIL 18, 2025

Pogradec was only drive through location. We did stop for lunch, which we ate in a small park. There was a little girl playing with her cat. She was pulling a string and the cat was chasing it. It was so sweet and innocent. I went to give her a Canada pin and ended up talking to her Grandpa. He said he spent over 20 years in America, but came back to Albania to be with family. He had no intention of returning to the USA.

This town was on the shore of Lake Ohrid. It is a huge lake (30 km (18.9 mi) long and 14.8 km (9.2 mi) wide at its maximum extent, with a shoreline of 87.53 km (54.39 mi). It is one of the world’s oldest and deepest lakes with a maximum depth of 288 metres (945 ft) and mean depth of 155 m (509 ft), it is the deepest lake in the Balkans. We needed to go along the shore and enter North Macedonia to get to the town of Ohrid. We followed Google Maps but were stopped by police and told this route was closed. We had to go back through the town and go another way. We got totally lost. But we met up with a young family who said they were going back home, to North Macedonia, and just to follow them. How wonderfully kind!! They even pulled over to the side of the road and indicated this was as far as they were going, and wished us safe journeys.

The border was a bit trickier than expected. We were told at the car rental that we would have to buy a Green Card permit for the car that allowed us to travel into all of the Balkan countries. In trying to not lose our guide, we did not see the HUGE sign that said GREEN CARD just before the actual border. As a result, the border guard had Pierre pull off to the side while I ran back to buy the permit. As it turned out it was a bit further than “running back”. A taxi driver offered to take me, for a small fee. I purchased the permit, jumped back in the taxi and returned to show it to the border guard. It was a temporary inconvenience but saved us lots of time at future borders.

There were a lot of bunkers in this town. Most were whimsically decorated.

We finally made it to North Macedonia and the city of Ohrid.