Macedonia :: Week 4

August 2nd is THE patriotic national holiday in Macedonia - it marks the anniversary of a day of organised revolt against the Ottoman empire over a century ago. The biggest gathering happens in a place called Krushevo - even the president rocks up for a meet and greet and to give a speech. Guess who got to shake his hand this year?

Crowd gathering...

Waiting for his moment with the president (sorry, the handshake was only sort-of captured on video)

Mechkin Kamen (Bear Rock) monument at Krushevo

We left for a driving tour of the northern part of Greece the next day. The region we drove through was part of Macedonia until just under 100 years ago - even though so much time has passed, everyone who is Macedonian still refers to all of the major towns and cities by their old Macedonian names.

A lot of significant archaeological sites have been found in the region dating back to the time of Alexander the Great. So we split our time between beaches and "old stuff".

We knew the area would be relatively flat compared to what we'd been around over the past few weeks, but it was still a surprise to see everything disappearing into haze everywhere we looked.

On the road

Plains around Vergina

One of the best finds was the waterfall on Mt Olymp.

On the way up

Freshwater pool too hard to resist...

We stayed at a resort in a place called Kallithea, right on the Aegean. Hot days + warm water + shallows you can wade out into for hundreds of metres + pool when you get tired of the beach = awesome.

On the way home we drove through a place that used to be called Voden (now Edessa) where we found another waterfall. Only this is one you can actually walk behind.

Next week we'll be visiting Sash's mum's village and some other places close to Bitola.