Northern Albania and Macedonia August 2016 After riding the southern Albania trip last year I had to go for this one. It was a fantastic trip over the mountains with beautiful views every day, the lakes, the mountains, the valleys. It was a bit tough going at times but it was worth the effort. The scenery was quite different to the southern trip. I'm glad I did both. Macedonia was different again. Lots of small farms with their goods on display by the roadside. Ohrid, UNESCO town was very picturesque overlooking lake Ohrid.
If you like cycling in the mountains with stunning views and quiet roads you will love this trip. The trip is graded as a 4 and this is accurate as there are some hard climbs on quite a few of the days. The views at the top make them all worth while. For the first few days you are on a ridge high up with the lake below. You then go down to the lakes and cross into Macedonia which is equally as spectacular.The road surfaces are really good for 99% of the time and much better than those we have at home. The traffic is very quiet and so for most of the holiday we had the roads to ourselves.This was our third holiday with this tour company and was equally as good as the others we have been on. Albania is a hidden gem and it was so good to go there before the mass tourists arrive.Hotels were all good and actually better than many of the other trips we have been on with this company,
The Ups and Downs of Albania A brilliant week. I have done many grade 3 trips which are very much a holiday with cycling but this grade 5 trip is very much a cycling trip plus a holiday. You will need to be pretty fit or a cyclist to get the best out of this foray into the mountains. Nevertheless you can easily tailor your trip with the odd trip to the broom wagon bus. It will be well worth whatever level of challenge you accept the scenery is stunning beautifully rugged and remote. Cannot fault the accommodation, food or guides Both junid the guide and Tuni the driver did everything they could to make this run smoothly and it did.As usual with this operator's trips the group make the difference and I was lucky to hit on a fabulous mix of lovely people.
