(written 18:19, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
We ate the included hotel but were rather dissapointed with it for what we got - we should have just done it ourselves and saved some money.
Today was the day to leave Greece, target Macedonia, so we spent the morning driving across smaller roads to get us there.
The Greeks and the Macedonians aren't exactly best friends, as evident by the quality of roads Greece bothers to build to get up there, so some of the going was pretty rough. But, we passed up and over mountain passes with snow everywhere, and through some horrible smog created by a huge number of power stations up in this northern area of Greece - being very cynical perhaps they don't mind if the smog blows north? No matter, their plan wasn't really working as there was plenty stuck in valleys on this side of the border.
After the problems we had last trip with the Schengen arrangement visa for me on an Aussie passport (summary: you can spend ninety days out of six months in Schengen countries - basically all EU except GB), I needed to make sure this time that I left the Schengen area by getting a stamp out of Greece - something that had been missed last time. No hassles on this front, as we drove north from the Niki border crossing into no-mans-land and approached Macedonia to attempt to get in.