2024 Balkans Overland Adventure, Ohrid North Macedonia to Ioannina, Greece...

Once again, I went out for a walkabout lovely Ohrid before we had to checkout and wait for our driver…  such a lovely town!  After the struggle getting our luggage to the car, we set off with our driver Leo for Ioannina, Greece. The scenery driving through the Galicia Mountains is just a lovely as every other area in North Macedonia we have been. Our border crossing today was a little more intense for our driver to explain the purpose of our trip as Macedonia and Greece are concerned about illegals entering their countries…Imagine! There was a big improvement in the roads after we entered Greece. The drive to Ioannina was very scenic and we lost count of the number of tunnels we went through. Ioannina is located in the north-west part of Greece at the shore of the Lake Pamvotis, close to the border with Albania, some 400kms away from Athens. Our driver delivered us to the hotel by midafternoon and we dropped our luggage and started a walkabout of Ioannina’s historic center. We found our way to the Castle of Ioannina entering by the Main Gate and the Thomas Tower. The Castle of Ioannina was built in 528 AD by the Byzantine Empire.   We were inside the actual old castle town of Ioannina…Our exploring of the old castle town was curtailed somewhat by a thunderstorm. The walled-in-town covers an area of 20 acres. Leaving the castle proper, we made our way through the cobbled streets and decided to get some traditional Greek food. While exploring the historic center and dodging thunderstorms, we found the Town Hall…across the street in Clock Square was the Clock Tower, a city landmark built in 1905. This square also had a number of statues commemorating historic figures. Ioannina has a quaint and historic old town center, and it was really too bad the weather did not cooperate but in our short time we did see some major highlights.