Extra parkrun and East Side Gallery

Today is Unification Day in Germany, and it 35 years since the wall came down in Berlin.

Therefore, their extra parkrun day is today, and we are here to do the Berlin Hasenheide parkrun.

It was a nice route round a big park on the outskirts of the city and we finished in 44th and 89th place.

We decided to walk back into town taking in a nice looking bridge that I saw on Google.

Along the way we came to a watch tower that had been preserved as a reminder of the past.

The rest of the area has been redeveloped and the wall removed, but in it's day it was a command centre for other observation towers that were erected every 300 metres.

We walked on through an area where almost every building was covered in graffiti on the ground floor, and this one also had a fantastic map of the world on its front.

Then we crossed the bridge that I had seen online and walked from the old west Germany into the old east Germany.

This is where we got a big surprise. There was a long wall with loads of great graffiti and eventually we realised that it was actually the Berlin wall.

The area was called the East Side Gallery, and is the longest open air gallery in the world.

In early 1990 artists painted over 100 murals on the East side of the wall to show their joy that the two countries had been reunited peacefully.

In 1991 this section of the wall was declared a national monument and this is the reason that it is still standing. It is 1.3 kilometres long, and covered in graffiti.

Part way along is a little door that was knocked through the wall.

Between 1963 and 1989 this wall was an inner barrier, then behind it was a 20 metre open space, then another wall, and then the river over to west Germany. If anyone made it over the top then guards were patrolling ready to shoot them before they could try to scale the second wall.

It is all very pleasant now though and lots of people were walking the whole length and enjoying the art.

Bus back to Tirana

Rain overnight, but we hoped that it would stop so that we could do a lakeside run.

In the nick of time it did, and we had a lovely run. I found it quite hard going but when we got back I noticed on Garmin that we were 700 metres above sea level, so maybe a bit of an altitude issue, or that's my excuse anyway.

After breakfast we had a few hours before we caught our bus and we found a beautiful bar and bought a beer.

This picture looks nice and I would have sat there for longer, but the chair was actually soaking wet and it took a couple of hours for my jeans to dry.

So tomorrow we fly home, and this is a summary of our trip.

We arrived in Albania, spent a couple of days there and then caught an hour and a half flight to Bucharest in Romania. 

It says on Google that it would take just over 13 hours to drive back by car, but it was considerably longer on our train and bus journey.

However we got to see much more of Albania, Romania, Bulgaria and North Macedonia our way.

Bus to Lake Ohrid

Up early this morning for a run along part of the Mother Theresa Way.

Mother Theresa was born in Skopje and there is a museum dedicated to her life and work. It is the most surprising shape with a giant baseball bat holding up one corner and a church on the top floor.

Then we caught a bus for a three hour journey to Lake Ohrid. This is also in North Macedonia, but is almost on the border with Albania.

I was excited because Darren had booked us a really nice hotel room, as it has to be said that some of the accommodation on this trip has been 'challenging'.

Unfortunately after climbing to the top of a very steep hill, it turned out that they had not processed our booking properly, so we got our money back and trudged back down again. 

It all got sorted out in the end and we are now in a different hotel with good views of a roundabout.

Setting off to explore we climbed right to the top of the highest hill to see a fortress and the beautiful North Macedonian flag.

It seems to be a bright yellow sun with sunbeams on a cherry red background.

However, the best discovery was the 13th century Church of St John on a rocky outcrop by the lake.

All around it was fantastic views of the lake and this was my favourite.

Just don't try and open the gate as there is a huge drop on the other side.

Bus to Skopje, North Macedonia

We caught a bus from Sofia this morning and set off through the Bulgarian countryside for the border with North Macedonia.

After a couple of hours we stopped for coffee and toilets in a little village with a beautiful tiny church and a storks nest on the top of a street light.

Then it was on to the border where it took about half an hour to get out of Bulgaria. Then 100 metres across no man's land and off the bus and through customs. We all made it through very quickly apart from one passenger who had a problem. 

In the end we waited for about 90 minutes and then the bus set off again, and I think that they were left behind. We set off into North Macedonia which - interesting fact -only became North Macedonia in 2019.

Straight away you could tell that we were in a different country as the houses looked more modern and the gardens were full of flowers, which were definitely lacking in Bulgaria.

In another couple of hours we reached Skopje, and into a different world.

In 1963 there was a terrible earthquake and almost all of the 18th and 19th century buildings were destroyed. In 2010 a huge initiative was launched to build new, earthquake resistant central Skopje in the neoclassical style.

Some of the buildings wouldn't look out of place in Las Vegas, but it is amazing and great fun.

There are giant statues everywhere, and one of the comments on Google is that they have overdone it a bit and 'less is more', but why not?

It is also full of cafés and bars, this one with a giant desk lamp.

It was all so unexpected, and totally different to the rest of our trip - and I mean that in a good way.

Trabants and the Great Gatsby

Sunday morning in Sofia and the roads are very quiet, apart from the area around the church that we visited yesterday.

The main road was closed by the police, and a huge car rally was taking place.

Hundreds of cars were polished and on show, ranging from Jaguars and Mustangs, and then best of all, a row of Trabants.

They all sparkled like new, and one with it's bonnet up showed off a cute little engine with very few moving parts.

We went round to the back of one car to check out the boot and found that it was actually a mini kitchen.

In the afternoon we went to a matinee of a ballet called The Great Gatsby at the national theatre.

Lots of people in the audience had dressed up in glamourous outfits and I was disappointed not to wear a nice dress that I had brought with me, but it was very cold and rain was due again, so I dressed down.

A strange pose, but in my mind I am doing a sort of Charleston.

The ballet was fantastic, so many dancers and all wearing beautiful costumes. Obviously it is based on the famous book, but we couldn't follow it at all, but it didn't matter at all.

Sofia, Bulgaria

Such a romantic sounding capital city, and we did see a beautiful rainbow from our room.

However, the fairytale then fades, because the surrounding area is pretty run down, although clean and with lots of people around.

The bus from Ruse took about five hours and the rain poured down, and in a de ja vu from yesterday, we thought that it had
stopped, went out to explore and got soaked again.

They do have an excellent metro system, and our line is a tasteful mint green.

Just before the rain set in we managed to get a quick snap of the Patriarchal Church of Alexander Nevsky. 

Lots of people were going through the front door and we followed them in, just in time for the start of the service. 

It's a Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Patriarch of the whole of Bulgaria conducted the service. His name is Danii and succeeded the previous Patriarch who died earlier this year.

He is right in the middle of the photo, has an amazing grey beard and carried a metal holder full of insense that he shook around him. He walked around the whole church, stopping at various icons to shake his holder, while a beautiful choir sang from a balcony high above us.

It was very beautiful and I feel privileged to have been there.