This was a 350 mile biking trip through the Balkans and it was provided by Mountain Travel SOBEK and it was incredible. We traveled through the back country for most of the time with little or no traffic and we were in nature and had some huge hills = awesome.  

The bike trip went through five countries while visiting 5 UNESCO sites. We arrived in Skopje and took a tour of the incredible city.

There were many statues around this beautiful old Ottoman-era town

We visited the memorial home of Mother Teresa

and this is where Mother Teresa was baptized, it is the old Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church and Skopje is where Mother Teresa lived in her early years. We also visited the beautiful Old Ottoman-ear Town and the old City fort and crossed the old stone bridge.

There was an old canal and the canals held old boats converted to restaurants

We stayed at many a great hotel like Hotel Alexander Square in the heart of things in Skopje and the rooms and food were great.  We had a great welcoming dinner.  All the hotels were great and we stayed in these hotels in Macedonia:  Hotel Alexandria Square -Skopje, Hotel Tutto – Jance, Hotel Park Lakeside.  The Hotel Park Lakeside in Orhid below was awesome as all the hotels were

How about that for hotels after a hard days ride 

After the town of Skopje, the next day we transferred to Mavrovo Park where we started our cycling trip.  We did about 40 miles of riding cycling down to Mavrovo Lake and visited the Bigorsky Monastery

On the way there

Bigorski Monastery below was awesome. The monastery was built in 1020 and is Macedonian Orthodox. The Ottomans destroyed the monastery in the 16th century, but it was restored in 1743 by the monk Ilarion, who also constructed a number of cells for monks. The archimandrite Arsenius further expanded the monastery between 1812 and 1825. Most of the old monastery complex was destroyed by a fire in 2009, while the new sections of the complex and church were saved. Reconstruction of the old sections began in May 2010 with the goal of restoring the buildings as closely as possible to their original style.

inside the church was awesome and I prayed in my thoughts

We finished the day by riding to Janche and stayed in Hotel Tutto a great hotel in a small hill town .

What a great day we had, The next day we rode

we rode through exquisite fields of flowers and along the way we stopped for a lunch in a small town

 

and visited a farm where we milked goats and could have gone horseback riding

 

 

We continued to Debar lake and then continued to Ohrid Lake which was incredible as it is a UNESCO site . We visited its old town which was great and an old printing paper manfacuter

Yes we can party , party up singing with the locals

We also visited the beautiful cathedral that overlooks the lake

and we concluded with a scrumptious meal on the lake and everyone was dressed up

We had a great hotel with great views  – from the incredible Hotel Royal view.  some shots for Macedonia and the next day we crossed the border into Albania so go to that site .  Could have gone kayaking but ran out of time bummer. Next county was Albania