In the evening, dinner was laid on at a village outside the town. In fact it was a 30 minute ride way up into the mountains to a very remote village at the end of the road. A household there has started a small business of providing local meals to visitors - a great initiative.
We were shown into a rustic timber room in their backyard:
The menu:
First off, as usual was the local hooch, rakija. This has been everywhere on the tour, but I haven't mentioned it, as I'm not a spirits drinker (other than G&T
). Rakija can be flavoured as the maker likes. this one is 'thistle rajija' , a nice subtle green colour:
Bleeding fire water is what it should be called. I gave mine to my neighbour at the table and i saw at least one other shot glass being fed to a pot plant (which probably later died
)
First course, of course was tomato, cucumber, green pepper and local sheep fetta:
A crispy potato and cheese dish:
Then the snails - not as spicy as the last ones we had, but still nice. I'm not a snail eater usually; these were not in the shells, thank goodness, but if I'd noticed the antennae at the time, I may have baulked:
Veal in sauce which as yum-o. Although we should have been having their 'local wine', it wasn't ready, so they served us a commercial Vranec, which was nice.
Dessert was a piece of cake. Outside was waiting this vacuum machine, very cute:
A great night, with the only flaw being the Brits on the tour who, for some bizarre reason, at the end of the meal, encouraged our host to pick up a guitar to play (badly) some Pink Floyd and Glenn Campbell, to which they sung along. So there we were, in the mountains in Macedonia, 6 or 8 Brits singing along to some American music.
Fair dinkum, after 15 minutes I had to interrupt and ask for some Macedonian music (unsaid: ... if we have to sit and listen to this cough). Too hard.
Wichita Linesman came forth then, at last, we got on the bus and back to the hotel.