2024 October 3 - 4; Relaxing at home

We had a couple of days at home to relax - me, JB, and Tina that is - Violeta never stops - from 5 am until at least 10 pm - she is washing, cooking, cleaning, tending her gardens and vegetables - the first one up and last one to bed. And she is always smiling - she loves a good laugh at something even if it is herself. She makes us great meals - at least 2 daily.

So while she and Tina were busy one morning, JB drove me to Krklino - a village about 15 minutes outside of Bitola on the Skopje road. We had a bit of trouble finding it - we walked into one driveway where the woman looked at us strangely - we asked about the museum - she just looked at us. So we went a bit further up the road and eventually found the place. It is one man's private collection - he has a load of old cars, motorcycles and sidecars, and bicycles. He buys them and repairs them. He has a 1972 Volkswagen bug that is decorated with flower power designs - it reminded me of my 1972 Orange VW convertible bug - I bought it when I graduated from college. It was a manual and I didn't know how to drive it!

There are all kinds of old household goods - Singer Sewing machines are everywhere - some of their pieces are used in the porch railings, the bases used as the bottoms for tables. There are old lanterns, dishes, pots and pans - it was amazing. The son took us upstairs for even more items. There was a room set up as the end of the 19th century home for a wealthy family - similar but smaller scope than the French Museum in Bucharest. There was another room set up for a regular person or farmer. I was especially interested in the room set up as a Jewish home - there wasn't very much - the son said that after all the Jews of Bitola were deported to the murder camp, the government took what possessions were left - the Nazis had previously taken anything of real value while the Jews were still there. He said that people had these items in their basements or stored away somewhere - not sure where they found them. His father paid for most of the items in the museum although some were donated by people who wanted Macedonian history remembered.

2 decorated trunks from a Jewish family or families. I love the decorative detail on them - the small matching one on the floor - the pocketbook casually laying on the trunk as if the owner would be right back.

I spotted the menorahs right away - every home must have had at least one. I didn't recognize the other items but someone left them behind. The Jews have been persecuted everywhere for centuries although I took a history course on the Ottoman Empire - the instructor said that the Ottoman sultans invited the Jews to come into the Empire because of their knowledge and business acumen. They welcomed the Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal - they employed many to help administer the Ottoman Empire. It is very sad and troubling to think that one of the largest Jewish communities in the Balkans could be rounded up one morning, forced onto trains and sent to their deaths - less than a dozen escaped. And this is all remains of them - a few possessions. 

Table top with a Singer Sewing Machine base. The family expanded the museum during Covid and built another building - 6 rooms upstairs to rent out - a restaurant downstairs - and a large wrap around porch with the above tables and benches. They only have bus tours coming this year because of lack of help but they plan to expand next year.

The owner who had just received an envelop of old currency and his wife making Ajvar. I don't know if you can see my pocketbook on the arm of the empty chair. I had been sitting there while the father was showing me the currency. JB wanted the picture of me with the wife. We left the museum after refusing tea, coffee, food - their hospitality was wonderful. We were halfway home when Tina called - the son had called Ilce - who had set up the visit - to tell them that I had forgotten my bag. We changed direction and headed back to the house - the son met me with my bag - he just laughed when I said that I was so overwhelmed by the Museum that I never missed my bag. I'm sure everyone else thought I was losing it.

Auto Ethnic Museum Krklino

Philip Tanevsky's family's business cards for the museum above and their bicycle shop in Bitola below.

Welcome to Bitola sign in Macedonian, English and French.

These 3 pictures were taken as we were driving to Novaci, and they show the dust blowing from the digging on the mountain where Tina's brother Ilce works. 

This picture shows the pollution from the power plant and the digging up of the mountain.

My daily visitor - Tina's cat

The next day we went shopping at this supermarket - there are small shops in Novaci - but this supermarket has larger sized items - we were buying our souvenirs - candy, cookies, chips! The store sells everything - it is much larger than it looks!

Very windy as we headed back to Novaci - look at the Macedonian flag blowing in the wind.

Some of the small shops in Novaci.

I asked JB to drive down to the power plant - I could see the smog as we drove toward it.

Dust blowing from the area where the digging is taking place.

Dust darkening the clouds.

This was a clear sunny day - look at how cloudy these pictures are.

More smog in these pictures.

Power plants spewing smoke along with dust from the digging. The power plant in Bitola provides 70% of the electricity in Macedonia. The plant is in Novaci which experiences power outages quite frequently.

Difficult to see the smoke coming from the power plant stacks but the upper sky is blue with white clouds - the sky is darker lower near the power plant.

Lots of pollution in this picture. 

Studies have shown that the Balkans in general have a large pollution problem from their coal-fired power plants. The plant in Bitola has some of the highest levels of pollution in Europe. 

Balkaninsight.com reports that: "The latest analysis, compiled by Bankwatch, released this week (2022), shows that fine dust, PM2.5, concentrations alone are responsible for up to 8.43 per cent of all deaths among adults in the nearby village of Novaci. This means that in this small, sparsely populated municipality, up to 6 people die prematurely every year due to PM2.5 pollution ...

Dust and sulphur dioxide emissions from the power plant are consistently higher than emissions’ legal limits. In the past few years, the plant has frequently been ranked among Europe’s top five emitters of pollutants."

I have read that, depending on who is reporting, there are plans to phase out the use of coal by 2027, 2030 or 2050. The power plants would be updated to use natural gas but that is also a fossil fuel. 

In November 2023 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank were planning to propose a €3 billion (US $3.26 billion) Just Energy Transition Investment Program (JET-P) to fund the replacement of Bitola power station and Oslomej power station with 1700 MW of renewable projects. I saw a YouTube video of several workers from the Bitola area talking with workers from a power plant that transitioned to clean energy plants. We will have to wait to see what happens. In the meantime how many citizens of Novaci die from the pollution.  And what about the workers - it doesn't sound like there are many safety programs nor safety equipment. 

2024 October 2 - Nis to Novaci.

Here is the view coming out of our hotel. Notice the angle that the car is at - this is the flattest part of the street.

The receptionist told JB and Tina last night that they host international students and once a month host a special night - last night was for Turkey.

The receptionist was very nice - we didn't have time for breakfast but he wanted to get us something to go. But we passed on that, thanked him, and just headed out.

An Orthodox Church in Nis.

An upgraded mountain road - pretty large barrier!

We saw this a lot in Macedonia and now in Serbia - they are digging out the mountain - some mountains have been leveled. I'm not sure what they use the stones and earth for but there are often power plants nearby.

Blurry sign for a favorite service plaza before the Macedonian border.

Door to the Ladies toilets at the service center. 

We crossed over the border into Macedonia without any problem - we got there before we knew it - Nis is only about an hour and a half from the border with Macedonia. Now we only had a couple of hours driving left. The roads wherever we've been have been traffic free except in the larger cities - the highways are a breeze - no back ups - very easy to drive a "little" over the speed limit.

There didn't seem to be the huge tracks of farmland once we got into Macedonia. But we continued to see people and tractors out in the fields harvesting the last of the crops. Also in Macedonia there were people with farmsteads right outside of their gates selling their crops. 

We stopped at one of the farmsteads outside of Bitola to buy a watermelon - we had seen watermelons everywhere since arriving. We also bought some plums and peaches - and imagine buying grapes after all the ones that were on the grapevine! We bought 3 kinds of grapes!

 

Drenova Gorge - Difficult to see but a new major highway is being built from Skopje to Bitola - a piece of it to the right of the sign extends above the yellow barrier on the old road.

Apparently they have been working on this highway for 7 years - hopefully it will be completed soon.

Outside of Prilep, Macedonia - more of the mountain side being harvested for power plants.

Arriving in Bitola - road work is going on here as well as we drove into the roundabout - about 3/4 way around and take a right for Novaci - then home!

We made it home safely, and of course Violeta had a big lunch all ready for us. She soon started washing our dirty clothes to take advantage of the sunshine and warm water. With the beautiful sunny day, there was plenty of hot water.  I think I said before that Tina's family has a solar panel installed on their roof - this heats the water - on cloudy or rainy days the hot water is limited. So we have to plan showers around how much hot water there is. The display screen is attached to the hot water tank. The number - in the picture it is 95 degrees - I think it indicates how hot the water in the tank is. Someone else in the house understands it and would just come and tell me that I could take a shower if I wanted to. Makes me thankful for the large hot water tank that I had at home and thankful that I always have plenty of hot water!

 

2024 October 1 - I adore Romania!

We had breakfast at 7:30 this morning - we were checking out early because we wanted to see the old center of Brasov before we headed for Bitola. JB was still talking about driving all the way today - 12 hours - Tina not so much. Breakfast was another hit today - I had a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with a cup of yogurt that, surprisingly, had small chunks of chocolate and grapes mixed in plus strawberry jam on the bottom of the cup. Sounds strange but it was quite good.

When we were checking out I asked the receptionist how long the hotel had been in business. She said the owners live in the building next door - they are architects - they had acquired the property and during covid remodeled it. We were telling her how much we enjoyed our stay - although I did mention that the water in the bathroom sink does not completely empty. The sink was an oblong shape, and the inside of the bowl does not provide for complete drainage - there is no tilt toward the drain so there is a slight bit of water covering the bottom of the bowl at all times. (It was not a terrible issue but I wanted to mention it.) The receptionist said that when they remodeled during Covid, they put in all new sinks - then they found this problem. It is every sink in the house and would be too expensive to replace them all. Other guests have mentioned the same thing so they will be gradually replaced. Other than this quirk, we loved this hotel and would definitely return here again if we were anywhere near Brasov. 

Stairs on right lead to owners' flat.

Thumbs up for the Upper House!

We drove down a twisty road into the old town center and passed this building on the way down. I was able to see it from the window in my room

After driving down from the top of the mountain, we saw the "Brasov" sign - the idea was similar to the "Hollywood" sign in Los Angeles.

After circling the town we came upon a parking lot - JB snagged a space. As we walked to the center, the smells from this bakery were overwhelming. The birds thought so too - the baker hangs old or burnt pretzels outside the bakery - there were 3 birds feasting on the pretzels at first but 2 flew away.

Walking toward the Black Church which was completed in 1476. Originally it was a Catholic Church, but during the Protestant Reformation it became a Lutheran Church for the German Saxons in the area. It was called the Black Church from the soot that covered it after a fire in 1689. But more recently there is no evidence of fire in the church and it is believed that it is pollution that caused the soot that covered the church. 

I love the mosaic on the clock tower - the 4 evangelists perhaps. 

Johannes Honterus who preached to the Saxon residents of Brasnov and converted them from Catholicism to Luthernism during the Protestant Reformation which started in Germany in the early 16th century.

Look at this numerical hopscotch!

Starbucks! US chains are all over Romania - McDonald's, BK, KFC, ReMax. Heading into the old city center.

JB and Tina trying to keep each other warm - it was very windy, damp and cold. The Brasov sign up on the mountain behind them.

Love the architecture here  - it was early and the weather probably kept people away because there were not too many people around. 

This little archway leads to Strada Sforii or Rope Street which is one of the three narrowest streets in Europe. It was a short cut used by firemen  in the 17th century to get from one side of the town to the other in case of fire. You aren't able to stretch your arms out while in this street because it is so narrow. Periodically it is whitewashed but before long it is covered again with initials, drawings, short messages. 

Getting ready for Halloween!

King Lear! Who knew it was being performed in Brasov! I wonder how it sounds in Romanian? My sister Joanne and I are big Shakespeare fans - maybe a new venue to visit!

Different views around the square - I imagine it is a hopping place with all the cafes on a nice day.

Heading back to the car park passing the Black Church which had a service going on or we would have popped in.

Look at the narrow street and cobblestones. They are everywhere - narrow streets and cobblestones both! In every country! These small towns were not made for cars, buses, and trucks!

We passed these houses on the way towards Serbia - we were driving through Serbia to get home instead of going back through Sofia in Bulgaria again. 

New construction.

Not a very good picture but we passed donkeys or horses pulling carts or wagons, or tractors pulling large wagons where families had just harvested their crops including tobacco. It was especially busy when we left Bitola for Sofia in Bulgaria.

We were driving though more mountains and farmlands. These were very large farms compared to Bitola. We crossed the Serbian border with no problem because it was late and almost dark. We changed our route a bit because there were big backups and delays going the original way. As we approached the border, there were trucks backed up for miles. We were in with the trucks until a car behind us started beeping at us. He finally pulled up past us and flew down the road beside the trucks - half in our line and half in the opposite lane - with the traffic on the other side coming at us -including buses! So JB did the same after several other cars passed us the same way. It was a bit harrowing with big tractor trailers coming right at us and no place to pull in. I just closed my eyes!

We eventually reached the border - there were still miles of trucks backed up but there were no cars. We slid right through! No one stopping us to check if we had anything to declare - no one making JB open the trunk to check our bags. We were actually laughing. It was beginning to get dark - we were still a bit away from Nis - so we decided to spend the night in Nis if we could get accommodation. Tina is a whiz looking up places to stay on her phone - I need my laptop. It was busy even if it was the off-season so there wasn't too much availability but she found a place.

Next we needed something to eat - it was just 8 pm. We tried one place that we thought looked okay. As we pulled into the parking space in front of the restaurant, a waitress shut the door and turned out a light. Again Tina found something on the same side of the city where we were - just down the street. We parked and crossed our fingers that the car would not be towed. As we walked into the enclosed terrace, we were hit with the smell of cigarettes. Tina walked into an empty room inside. (There are no designated non-smoking areas anywhere we've been.) We were the only ones in the room. And there were only men and a couple of boys on the terrace - was this a men's bar! We ordered drinks as we checked out the menu. Tina ordered as she sadly is the only one of us that can speak Serbian or Bulgaria and of course Macedonian. The waiter suggested we ordered too much food, but we assured him we were very hungary. It turns out he was correct - we had enough food to feed at least 6 or more people. We had a salad for the table, I had grilled chicken and vegetables, JB ordered a platter of mixed grilled meat with grilled veg, I don't remember what Tina had but the table was full of food. I think the waiter took great satisfaction when he asked Tina if she wanted him to pack up the left over food. Of course we did!

Next we headed for our hotel - again up twisting narrow dark roads. We stopped at one place but it was not the hotel. We had to go up further. We finally couldn't go any farther.  The hotel was on a very steep hill.  JB stopped outside the reception area before he parked for the night. I threw my bag over my shoulder and almost slid down the hill! It was that steep!

As JB parked, I walked in to loud music and laughter - there were a ton of kids throughout the main floor. Tina had checked us in so we all headed up to our rooms. The rooms weren't too bad - some of the towels in my room looked like they may not have been washed and one of the pillow cases looked iffy. And there weren't sheets or a comforter on the bed. It looked like a light bed blanket folded up - one on each side of the double bed. But it was an okay set up for one night. Only one night! Bitola was just 4 hours away but it was about 10 pm  and no one knew the road. So we just made the best of it. We have to get up early tomorrow to get to Bitola - Tina has an appointment early in the afternoon.