Last summer, a few friends of mine invited me to join their active bike tour in West Macedonia. We were traveling to Ohrid at the border with Albania and meet a few other Albanian friends that were also with us.
We went on bikes to a fish restaurant in Ostrovo where we had a wonderful dinner. Our bike journey took 6 days and during that time we traveled across our beautiful country while offering our companions to better know our touristic offerings.
The aim of this tour was to connect with the local markets for active tourism in Macedonia. This was assisted by operators from North America and Western Europe in order to attract tourists from other countries. There were other participants that had a very important role in this campaign. We had a plan to visit St. Naum, Ohrid, the mountain of Galicica, the lake of Prespa, the old town of Heraklea, the villages of Dihovo and Treskavec, Krushevo, Mavrovo and the capital Skopje. In the following few days, participants were able to visit other great regions like Stobi and Tikvesh, and during this visit they had a chance to taste the most delicious Macedonian wines. They were very satisfied and they wanted to take some bottles home but there were no possibilities for doing such a thing.
This tour called “Adventure Week” was organized by the International Association for active tourism in a proper collaboration with the USAID project for expansion of small businesses. The agency for promotion and support of tourism and a number of business in the sector of tourism in Macedonia.
During this bike trip, the guests had het privilege to have breakfast on a raft. This was organized in the river Black Drim. This was a spectacular start to the day because later we were having lunch in a very good fish restaurant in Ohrid called Sun Valley. All this time we traveled on our bikes. We were happy and glad for this tourism opportunity. We also presented to them our vinyards in the Tikvesh region. We had a tour around the vinyard and encountered with them the great wooden boxes full of wine. We tasted the best quality wines and ate delicious cheeses and great meat prepared by qualified chefs.
Apart from the natural beauty, this group also had the chance to enjoy the traditional Macedonian music, food, and culture. We also organized a boat trip with Macedonian folk music and traditional pastrmka (trout). As a part of this bike tour we had a chance to experience a number of other sports activities like tandem paragliding, rock climbing, hiking, and mountain biking.
We had a lot of adrenaline charged situations where we enjoyed and refreshed our mind and souls. The most important thing was that our friends were satisfied and glad that they were experiencing situations like this. We are sure that in a short period of time we would create a new opportunity to have new chances for such tours. Soon, we will present our new bike tour with different regions and activities.
