Ohrid lake

Halpern, Joel Martin · [ca. May 1954]

1954 field notes read: "Ohrid Lake is a beautiful thing, sometimes called the jewel in the bosom of Macedonia, like Dubrovnik is the pearl of the Adriatic. It is a lovely sight. The lake is 15 miles long and half as wide. It is ringed all around by high snow-capped mountains made more exotic by the fact that the western rim is Albania. On Sunday, May 30th, we went with a very pleasant German doctor and his wife and son in their car to the Monastery of Sveti Naum at the far south end of the lake, about 50 yards from Albania. This German doctor was a POW for 4 years in Oklahoma and Arkansas and speaks English pretty well so we didn't have to struggle with German and French. The art historian from the museum went with us too so it was very hard for 6 to fit into the tiny car and it was certainly nice of him to let us come. From the town of Ohrid to Sveti Naum is 15 miles, about a 45 minute drive along the coast of Lake Ohrid. Sometimes we would wind around small mountain passes and sometimes the road went across the sand on the shore. This was the case when we passed through the fishing village of Pestani. Being Sunday afternoon, the fishermen were not out on the lake and the nets were drying on poles set in the sand on the shore."