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Before getting on the bus last night, I nipped to the restaurant I’d gone to the night before. I then filled myself up with penne arrabiata and left. Just the trick.

I also had time to do a bit of research for getting to Thessaloniki, there are many different options with different complication, price and duration levels. The most promising is the train from Skopje to Thessaloniki on Saturday at 17:15 getting in at 22:34. Though this would mean going back on myself and I refuse to do that, so what I want to try and do is pick the same train up at Gevgelija on the Macedonian/Greek border at 19:55. This morning I need to look at how to get to Gevgelija from Ohrid and also somehow confirm with the Macedonian railways that the train details on the German Rail site are correct. This also means that I’ll stay another night in Ohrid.

While on the bus I entertained myself in a multitude of ways; I read some more of ‘Don Quixote’ which I’m now 60.40% into, I messed about with the simply brilliant Bebot iPhone app which I’d bought for a quid that day, I listened to loads of music in Itunes and Spotify (mainly to keep from hearing the truly terrible usual pap that comes with the buses in these parts, I don’t mind going on record as saying that the Balkans has produced some of the worst music to ever grace this planet) and lastly I came up with the below.

Fri 16 – Ohrid
Sat 17 – Night train
Sun 18 – Athens
Mon 19 – Athens
Tues 20 – Night ferry
Wed 21 – Taormina
Thurs 22 – Taormina
Fri 23 – Siracusa
Sat 24 – Palermo
Sun 24 – Night ferry
Mon 26 – Naples
Tues 27 – Naples
Wed 28 – Rome
Thurs 29 – Rome
Fri 30 – Rome
Sat 31 – Florence
Sun 1 – San Marino
Mon 2 – Venice
Tues 3 – Venice
Wed 4 – Milan
Thurs 5 – Vaduz
Fri 6 – Munich
Sat 7 – Munich
Sun 8 – Zurich
Mon 9 – Bern
Tues 10- Geneva
Wed 11 – Monaco
Thurs 12 – Andorra
Fri 13 – Madrid
Sat 14 – Madrid
Sun 15 – Madrid
Mon 16 – Lisbon
Tues 17 – Lisbon
Wed 18 – Seville
Thurs 19 – Seville
Fri 20 – Valenicia
Sat 21 – Valenicia
Sun 22 – St Jean D’ Angely
Mon 23 – St Jean D’ Angely
Tues 24 – St Jean D’ Angely
Wed 25 – St Jean D’ Angely
Thurs 26 – Normandy (town/city TBC)
Fri 27 – Normandy (town/city TBC)
Sat 28 – Normandy (town/city TBC)
Sun 29 – Paris
Mon 30 – Paris

Now this is anything but set in stone and probably unachievable really, a lot of it is based on guestimates on travel times but it’s a rough plan at least. I’m already missing plenty off that I’d like to fit in and another month would be perfect, the way I see it though I’ve a lifetime to comeback and fill in all the gaps.

I got a cool stamp when leaving Albania, whoo! That was the good bit of customs.

On the Macedonian side was the bad bit. Things took ages, my bus that was due in Struga at 23:30 didn’t actually get in until 02:00 because they kept us sitting there on it for hours and then we were standing outside for another 45 minutes or so in weather on par with a Mancunian January. Finally for some reason we then went on a different bus, I’ve no idea what it was all about and I didn’t even get a stamp for all my troubles. I rang the hostel at about 1 in the morning and the bloke said he’d wait up luckily. I’m now not a fan of Macedonian customs, though maybe it was the bus company’s fault, who knows.

It was even hard work after that. I knew Struga should be about 15 minutes from the border and when I saw a sign saying it was 2KM away I kept alert. Then the bus pulled over and it was clearly not a bus station or in any way what could be considered a town, I was worried. Of course no one spoke English so I was in a bit of a pickle. I gathered just about from the driver that this was indeed deemed as the Struga stop but there was no taxi rank. An old woman and a young lad had got off the bus and a taxi pulled up from nowhere for them, the driver was gesturing and I took it that he was advising me to get involved with that taxi before it scarpered. It was pretty much my only choice after all and if that was a no go I would have been stranded 15KM from where I needed to be in the cold and rain with no plan B.

The taxi driver didn’t speak a word of Blighty talk but I showed him the address and asked how much and after a little bit of confusion (all the while with my foot in a big puddle) I finally got that he’d take me there for €5. So he dropped the other people off in Struga (where the bus had stopped was on the outskirts then) and then proceeded to go to Ohrid. But he didn’t know the guesthouse, so then he stopped and asked another driver and we ended up following him, at this point I think he was trying to say it was €5 to here and more beyond. As none of this was in English though I wasn’t sure and certainly wasn’t going to help him out in that respect.

We ended up on some street in the pitch black and the other driver assured us this was it, though the place they were pointing at didn’t look right to me. While checking the address on my phone he then inadvertently deleted the email which had the address and directions from the centre (which I was going to use to try and find it on foot), so rather miffed and dejected I paid him and set out on a bit of a hopless task to find the place.

Within seconds I’d walked past it, whoo! So he had dropped me on the right street after all just not at the right house. Phew.

A bit of a nightmare journey all round really. But just after 3 I was finally in bed and enjoying the fact that there were 2 large blankets to keep me warm.

Though it transpired that they weren’t enough and I had to dig my sleeping bag out at 6 in the morning. I got a solid 4 hours after that.

One thing I’ve forgot to mention is that since I’ve been in Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania, power cut are very regular. I suggest if you’re a gamer to save very often or have a back-up generator?

The place (Antonio Guesthouse) I’m staying is alright, not much fun but I’ve privacy and it’s clean, cheap and secure. It’s advertised as having WiFi everywhere but the router is in the adjacent building and the signal is that weak that I lose it every minute and have to manually reconnect, is driving me mad!

When I got out and about today the first thing I went to do was have a look at the actual lake which is lovely, but I have to say I think there are better in Cumbria.

Then I was just mooching around the old cobbled streets and came across a few historical landmarks, first up was the Church of St. Sophia, next was Czar Samuel’s Fortress (which offers the best views available of the town) and lastly the Plaosnik Monastery (I found it to be a serenely peaceful place, though it helped that I was the only person in it).

I’d never had roasted chestnuts before and you see plenty of street sellers flogging them round this side of Europe so I finally gave them a try. I shall be having them again in the not so distant future.

Just an afternoon was long to see the sights of Ohrid really as they’re all very close together, though I imagine that in the summer you could happily spend a few days here. It’s a nice place.

After that I walked to the bus station so I know where I’ll be going tomorrow and also to get times and prices. My plan to get to Gevgelija and pick up the train to Thessaloniki is in tatters as even though it’s closer, it involves 2 or 3 changes which could be complicated or lengthy for all I know. There is another quicker option but it involves crossing the border between bus stations in a taxi and it could work out to be pretty expensive. So, even though I don’t like it, I’ll have to go back to Skopje in the morning which will take around 3.5 hours and then wait round a few hours there before getting the train I mentioned earlier. Boo.

By this time I was well in need of a substantial meal and I was getting a bit bored of pasta, pizza or lasagna all the time. I was full of the cold, tired and weak and wanted a meat feast God damn it.

I found a nice little restaurant doing a mixed grill but they had no room at the inn, man. Then eventually I came across a large but completely dead (I was the only one in it, not a good sign eh) called B.A.D Restaurant, what a terrible name.

I ordered ‘Alexander’s Sword’ (pork, veal and chicken on a large skewer with salad and fries). It certainly met the substantial requirement and the meat was all very tasty, so a good selection. The obligatory local beer I had was in Cyrillic so I don’t know the name.

I figured out why the place was empty though, when I came in they put on and turned up that music I have had to face on the buses a lot recently. I’m honestly really looking forward to getting out of the Balkans to escape it as it’s everywhere, they all seem to love it as well.

3 of Cobra Killer’s first 4 albums (Cobra Killer, 76/77 and Das Mandolinenorchester) are what I’ve listened to today. There is a bit of hype around the German outfit at the moment apparently and I think it very unjustified, all 3 of the albums are boring and juvenile. They should take a look at Crystal Castles to see how that sort of thing should be executed. Avoid them like the bubonic plague (which incidentally around 3000 people a year are still diagnosed with, I discovered last night on the National Geographic channel). One thing I should say to be fair, the hype is about their 5th and latest album which I haven’t heard, the predecessors have left me with absolutely no desire to though.

I spent the next few hours in an internet cafe and it’s here that I discovered that all my planning for Thessaloniki was a waste of time. There’s no hostels there and I’m not paying for 2 nights in a hotel, bugger. So I will go straight to Athens. I still need to go to Skopje and in fact I’ll need to get the same train to Thessaloniki, but then change there to get in Athens at about half 5 in the morning. On the plus side it frees up a few extra days. I’ve amended my rough plan above already, it didn’t even survive a day!

So tomorrow day and night (and well into the next day) will be a complete day of transit, I can’t say I’m relishing it.