Flower power Pelister

Or Pelister national park as is its official name. It is situated near Bitola, a nice town with a cosy centre. We drove up to the park to go for a hike. Like most national parks there is a small entrance fee for cars; 50 denars which sounds like a lot but it’s €0,82 :). There is a visitor centre and one hotel, there are no other facilities.

We drove up to the hotel where we parked and chose a hike from the map on the wall and with some help from a friendly man who worked at the hotel. We decided to to hike up to Jorgov Kamen, a viewpoint.

At the beginning of the hike there was a board with rules. One of them said to keep your pets (dogs and cats) on a short lead. This is the first time ever that we came across a rule for a cat! Of course Binkie is always on a lead.

We hoped that this time we could actually finish the hike instead of having to turn around because of snow. Well, we weren’t disappointed! No snow and no unexpected dangerous parts in the trail. It was a very pleasant hike, not too hard and the path was well marked and well kept. And so beautiful! We hiked through forest, along rocky parts and through meadows.

And it was absolutely amazing how many flowers there were everywhere! In every possible colour. A florist would be jealous!

And at the end we had a great view over the valley and other parts of the park. Binkie enjoyed the hike as well, he likes it when the trails are clear and have plants or trees on the sides.

The next day Kilian went for a bike ride up to Golemo Jezero, a lake. He couldn’t completely finish the planned route because of some remaining snow fields. But it was a nice route anyway.

I walked the so called historical trail, a very easy route from the visiter center to the hotel, single way it takes less than an hour. Along the route there are information boards about WW1. Apparently there was quite some heavy fighting in the Pelister area.

In the afternoon we drove out of the national park to Ohrid.