Prizren has a compact and bustling historic center.  The highlights have been mosques, views from a ridgetop fortress and grilled meat! Unfortunately the Serbian Orthodox churches, one a UNESCO Heritage site, lost most of their medieval art in 2004 hostilities and are now mostly closed and/or under police protection.  It's been a nice rest day today.  Tomorrow we're off to visit an undamaged monastery on the way to Montenegro.  More big climbs to come in the distant mountains!

Skopje was good to us... Very tasty Vranec from Tikves region... As we left Skopje to the northwest we quickly entered Albanian neighborhoods.  We tried to buy some food to use our last Macedonian denar, but it took three tries as the first two refused payment.  We wonder if it was due to Ramadan generosity or just general friendliness. We also crossed paths with dozens of road cyclists out for a weekend ride, understandably as the roads (with the enjoyable exception of a dirt shortcut we took) and scenery were very nice. We started seeing the Albanian flag and war memorials to the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) in Macedonia all the way to Prizren.  The war is an active and traumatic memory for people.   Sunday was a spectacular riding day through a national park over Prevalle Pass, our high point so far at 1516 meters.  Hotel in a ski area town. The friendliest dog of the trip... We finished with a huge (1100m) descent through a gorge (where we zoomed by a speed limit sign for tanks!) t

Is an interesting place. It was 80% destroyed in a 1963 earthquake and rebuilt quickly. After independence there was an intentional effort made to create a city center that "feels" like a European capital city, so many new buildings were built to look older and statues are all over.  The old bazaar was renovated and it appears to be focused on tourism.  Alexander the Great could have conquered the world faster on a bike. In hunting down a smaller (easier) chainring for my bike (lots of climbing in our future) we made some friends. Slave and his coworker (former Yugoslavian national cyclist in the '70s) dug through parts bins to find one for me.  No payment accepted, but some beers were shared. Then I met Nenad (excellent bike mechanic, mountain biker, world traveller, and rapper with 5 albums) in one of the many bike shops in town when I needed a specialized tool to install the chainring.  I got it on only to find it didn't quite work. Nenad volunteered to cut it to f

Catching up time...Bitola provided a nice hostel and pleasant town. Before leaving Bitola we enjoyed visiting Roman ruins at Heraclea.  Amazing to me is what's just piled around...   We went to the Jewish cemetery in search of family headstones for Al and Mo, but it was closed and in disrepair.  Maybe it will be restored... We rode past a large marble quarry, over a lightly (0 cars) used pass, where we encountered snow on the ground, and found our first campsite that felt wild. Turns out it really is wild as I scared 3 wolves on the ride down the next morning! Apparently Macedonia has the biggest wolf population in Europe.  Found our first, and only goats and sheep, in Macedonia on this road.  Given the presence of wolves, the sheepdogs are bigger than elsewhere.  Storks nesting in villages is something I've wanted to see for a long time.  We made our way to Veles, where I expected to see a vibrant center with a pedestrian zone and old bazaar like in the other recent Albanian a