We are staying in a sleepy little fishing village of the edge of a lake which straddles the border between Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. The picture shows Gill and I firmly on Greek soil with Albania’s shore on the left of the picture and North Macedonia on the right.
The village is called Prespa and it became internationally famous in 2018 when an agreement was reached here between Greece and Northern Macedonia, its fame probably lasted a few days and it has now gone back to sleep.
Since 1991 the Greeks have been in dispute with their northern neighbours who wanted their new country post the breakup of Yugoslavia named Macedonia. The Greeks believe that Macedonia is part of their history (a slightly dubious claim) and unless the country was referred to “The Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia or FYRM” the Greeks vetoed any agreements with the country by Nato, the UN or the EU.
The EU view was best summed up by the Danish foreign minister who attracted the ire of Greek members of the European Parliament when he described the Greek position as "ridiculous".
It got so silly that when trying to seat the representative of the Republic of Macedonia in the UN, Greece rejected placing the Republic's representative under M (as in "Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of") and the Republic rejected sitting under F (as in "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"). Instead, they were seated under T as "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".
An agreement was finally signed after a bit of arm twisting when the Greeks were trying to win friends for the second bailout. The country is now called "North Macedonia".
Goodness knows what the various dignitaries thought of Prespa, pictured below, there are a great many derelict houses, a very run down and empty town hall and about half a dozen tavernas. The lake is very picturesque and we had a very nice walk today through juniper woods. Gill and I were arguing over which of the various berries and bushes we encountered were juniper, some were red, others green and all sorts of different leaves. I am afraid after some research I discovered Gill was right, did you know they are not berries at all but small fur cones! What an exciting holiday we are having!