Great fun in the hills of Macedonia (Mavrovo National Park (Macedonia))

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Mavrovo National Park (Macedonia)
Date:	13/05/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wonderful location

Disadvantages: Not a lot of infrastructure for standard tourism, though that's part of the fun

Travelling around Mavrovo is something you are either going to need a car for or will need to hitchhike because public transport is extremely limited. I chose the latter and headed up along the western road which straddles the Albanian border from Struga.

The whole area is a picturesque wonder with mountains, trees and lakes everywhere. Most people in the western part of Macedonia these days are actually Albanians that have either moved there legally or illegally over the border, plenty of whom are there just to smuggle various goods over the borders. They are doing a good job of hiding it though because unlike the beep filled roads of Albania, there's silence on the roads here. You will notice lots of cars with Swiss number plates as this is quite the holidaying destination for those who have emigrated out of Macedonia and Albania. Some of the sign-posts still have bullet marks in the area although I'm not sure if this was from an overspill of the war in Kosovo or the 2001 insurgency that took place there.

First up is Vevcani, a spring town famed for it's water and festival in January, there's a pleasant atmosphere here and it brings a welcome bit of shade to what can be a hot region in the summer. Numerous hiking trips to the west and north-west can be taken from here to idyllic small villages, some of which remain unconnected by road.

Next up is Debar, one of the bigger towns in the area - there is not too much happening here but it's the gateway to Mavrovo National Park where you can find ski slopes, the impressive Sv Jovan Bigorski monastery complex and perhaps the most stunning of all Lake Mavrovo with it's half submerged church, the lake was actually considerably bigger than I thought and a popular haunt for youngsters in the summer and a place I willingly cooled off for a bit, hitchhiking along this part of the valley was particularly nice, although there wasn't a great deal of traffic - there was the lake on one side of the road and shady trees on the other, some roaming goats also seemed to enjoy it and even showed an interest at chewing my backpack! There's a lot of sheep and goats herded in the area and in fact which is not much of a surprise for a mountain area, the typical farmer has a Sarplaninac, perhaps better known as a Yugoslavian Sheep Dog, a fluffy looking critter with a gentle face. Local dairy products, in particular feta is absolutely delicious in this area.

At the end of the Mavrovo National Park lies the relatively big town of Gostivar which has a pleasant city centre

Accomodation options are limited, you can always try putting up a tent somewhere. Other than that you are best off in Gostivar or Debar. I camped in a forest just outside of Gostivar, my main problem was with mosquitoes though reading up on the area later - I realised it could have been quite a bit worse with bears, wolves and lynx prowling around as well as the occasional rebel extremists from Albania. the cautious chaps at the British Embassy warned against visiting the region at that time but I think that warning has since been removed (better check that)

Summary: Very nice