Go everywhere, Do everything

If we are honest, North Macedonia was picked for this year’s summer trip purely because it was the cheapest place TUI does holidays to that we haven’t been to. Plus I always love exploring new places that we know nothing about for the surprise element rather than somewhere that we have seen all over social media.

Ohrid (pronounced Ockrid, the ck like the ch in Loch) is the largest city of Lake Ohrid. It has an Old Town and waterfront as well as larger city away from the lake. North Macedonia has an interesting past being part of various Empires and Kingdoms throughout history and more recently being part of Yugoslavia. There is still some contention over the name due to the Greek region with the same name.

The plan for the week was to use Ohrid as a base to explore the area as well as have a bit of rest and relaxation.

What we did

Day 1:

We arrived at lunchtime on our first day and after transferring from the airport, we put our luggage and Pip in the room and went to the TUI welcome meeting. We then grabbed Pip and set out to explore the lake and walk along to the old town. We found a lovely rooftop bar overlooking the lake to sample some local beer and we tried some ice cream. The walk to the old town took about 20 minutes from the hotel and gave us the opportunity to check out all the menus of the restaurants overlooking the lake. We walked back in the Ohrid for dinner and also stopped at the small supermarket overlooking the lake to stock up on snacks and drinks for our room fridge.

Food: We ate at one of the restaurants overlooking the lake. It was a quiet enough point in the season that we could walk in to any of the restaurants and get a table without waiting.

Day 2:

Boat trip to St Naum (booked through TUI). This was a nice relaxing morning as the boat left from the Old town port at about 10am and followed the coast of the lake along to St Naum.

St Naum was a monastery before the communist period and still has the 16th century chapel on the site. You are still able to visit and stay in the surrounding buildings as part of a religious pilgrimage but due to the fact North Macedonia was previously part of Yugoslavia and a secular country, a tourist beach has grown up around the monastery.

We started our visit with a guided tour of the monastery which was a nice way to get a bit of historical context for the monastery and the history of religion in North Macedonia. We then visited the spring head of St Naum which is a tiny lake that feeds Lake Ohrid, the crystal clear water comes from numerous springs including some underwater springs that you can see bubbling up from below the water. Motorised boats are not permitted on this part of the lake and instead you can take a guided row boat to see the spring head. The tour finished with lunch (not included in the price of the tour) at the restaurant overlooking the spring head lake at Restaurant Ostrovo.

We had some free time to explore the beach area and tourist shops before heading back to Ohrid.

Food: We ate lunch at St Naum and had pizzas at one of the restaurants overlooking the lake for dinner.

Day 3:

We had a really relaxing day today. We spent some time at the pool and I had a massage at the hotel. Andy and I had a little stroll to find some iced coffee and we just chilled and enjoyed the sun.

Food: We ate at the hotel pool bar at lunch and had a snack dinner from the local shop.

Day 4:

Day 4 was a very early start for a 3 hour drive to Tirana, Albania (booked through TUI). We were picked up from our hotel along with 2 other couples and did the drive to Tirana that included a coffee stop half way and a border stop.

The tour included a short walking tour guided by a local and then about 3 hours free time to explore. Tirana was not what we expected at all, full of innovative architecture and art as well as history.

We found a traditional Albanian restaurant for lunch where we shared some Albanian tapas and then visited Bunk Art 2 where we explored an underground bunker and learned about Communism. We then had a final wander before meeting our transport back.

Food: Lunch was in Tirana and dinner was at one of the restaurants overlooking Lake Ohrid.

Day 5:

We spent the day exploring Ohrid. Starting with a walk down the lake to the old town where we had coffee and pastries at Roastery. From there we walked up through the streets of the Old Town to Tsar Samuel’s Fortress which has a paid entrance and you can walk the walls where there are some fantastic views of the area.

We then walked down to Plaoshnik, Church of St Clement and Pantaleon where there is a beautiful new church and also fascinating archeological sites. There is also a lovely cafe where you can sit surrounded by flowers and enjoy the peace and a cold drink.

Our last stop was the Church of Saint John of Kaneo which is the church that sits on a little outcrop in to the lake and can be seen from Ohrid.

We walked along the shores of Lake Ohrid past some of the beach clubs and back to the hotel where we immediately went for a dip in the lake to cool

off.

Food: Dinner was at Hotel Aleksandrija overlooking the port.

Day 6:

We had booked a day trip to Skopje (booked through Viatour) and although we were on a slightly bigger bus, we had the same driver as we had had when we went to Tirana.

Skopje is the capital of North Macedonia and is an interesting place to visit. We were dropped off at Skopje Fortress where we had some time to learn about the history of the fortress and walk the walls.

We then walked down the hill to Mustafa Pasha Mosque which was beautiful but we unfortunately could not go inside as we arrived at the same time as Friday prayers.

From the Mosque we walked down to the Old Bazar. Skopje has an interesting past as it was almost 80% destroyed by an earthquake in 1963. Both the West and East sent aid to help rebuild so the city has an interesting mix of communist style building and more decorative western style. The Old Bazar has a more Ottoman feel and then other side of the city across the Stone Bridge is much more modern. There are statues and art work everywhere which comes from an initiative called project 2014.

After a really interesting and informative walking tour we had some free time where we ate lunch in the Old Bazar and wandered through the shops including the most fascinating antique shop selling communist era antiques.

Food: We ate lunch in Skopje and a snack dinner at the hotel.

Day 7:

On our last full day we did my favourite trip which was a 4×4 tour up in to the mountains to Galicia National Park (booked through Lale Tours). The trip takes in a number of stops with stunning views of the park, Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. We had a fabulous home cooked lunch at at Park lodge where our the drivers of our 5 car convey pulled out all the ingredients they needed to whip up an amazing meal of grilled meats and salads.

Food: Lunch was included in the trip along with soft drinks, wine, beer and coffee. We ate at the port in the Old Town for our last night.

Where we stayed

We stayed at Unique Hotel and Spa Resort, you can find full details of our stay and room in this post.

Transport

A transfer was included to and from the airport with our TUI package. For the rest of the trip we booked tours to places that were further away and explored Ohrid on foot.

Money

North Macedonia use the Macedonian Denar and we were also able to use our Revolut card almost everywhere we went. Albania use the Lek and again we were able to pay using Revolut. Many places also advertise prices in Euros.

Having cash is useful for tipping and the odd places that don’t take card. It was also worth shopping around the ATMs as some had much better transaction fees than others.

Food

The food available in Ohrid restaurants was mainly pizza, pasta, burgers etc. Some restaurants served more traditional meat dishes and nearly everywhere also had salad on the menu. The local cheese served is very similar to feta. It was more difficult to find somewhere that did something different from traditional food or Mediterranean cuisine.

As a vegetarian I managed to find something to eat everywhere we went although there wasn’t always a massive choice.

Our Thoughts

We visited the last week in August so we mostly had lovely hot weather during the night and cooler weather at night. We had one torrential rain storm. It felt like it was nearing the end of the summer season as is was fairly quiet and we were always able to get a table in restaurants.

We loved the chilled pace in Ohrid and I think if we visited again we would stay in the Old Town area where the apartments have a bit more character and there are more restaurants and bars for exploring.

Our favourite days out were the trip to Tirana (which has gone back on the list as somewhere we need to do a proper trip to) and the 4×4 jeep tour of the national park.

We’re really glad that we took the tours that we did as it allowed us to find out not just about the tourist history of the area but also the cultural history. We booked through TUI and get your guide but you could have booked directly with a lot of the companies while you were there (although maybe not at high season).

We visited in August 2025 when Pip was 13.