--- title: "August 2023: Türkiye, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Albania" description: "What I got up to in August in my open-source work and my travels." canonical_url: "https://harlanzw.com/blog/2023-august/" last_updated: "2026-08-27T14:30:33.773Z" --- In August me and my girlfriend continued travelling, getting to 4 new countries: Türkiye, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Albania. A typically morning was waking up and trying to piece together the details of where we even where, we were moving fast after Greece. We did a quick detour in Türkiye, then the many cramped and sweaty bus getting around the Balkans. I was surprised to still manage to get 109 hours to work on open-source, but I was starting to feel the burnout of managing work and travel. ## Open-source ::div{.grid.sm:grid-cols-2.gap-3.sm:gap-8.sm:my-15.my-5} :::score-card{label="⭐ GitHub stars" :before="6295" :after="6543"} ::: :::score-card{label="⌛ Hours Worked" :before="204" :after="109"} ::: :::score-card ```yaml [props] label: 💸 MRR AUD currency: true :before: '1212' :after: '1240' ``` ::: :::score-card ```yaml [props] label: 💸 Per Hour AUD currency: true :before: '6.23' :after: '11.76' ``` ::: :: The highlight of the month was getting out [Unhead v1.3](https://github.com/unjs/unhead/releases/tag/v1.3.0) which included some significant performance improvements. I continued work on Nuxt Scripts, trying to figure out the scope of the project and how it would work. The rest of my time went to maintenance of [Nuxt SEO](https://nuxtseo.com). ## 🇹🇷 Türkiye Our first day in İstanbul was massive, exploring all the stunning Mosque's. You can easily hit up 5 mosques and only walked a few kms. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img{src="/august-mosque-1" alt="Fatih Mosque, İstanbul" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-mosque-2" alt="The Blue Mosque, İstanbul" no-margin} :::: ::: :: We stayed in a locals neighbourhood and hit up the family-run restaurants. I didn't know at that point, but I'd be eating some form of "kebab" and drinking Turkish coffee every day for the next month. Safe to say, I also took advantage of the Turkish sweets. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img{src="/august-kebab" alt="Kebab, Lahmacun, Pide" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-sweets" alt="İstanbul sweet shop" no-margin} :::: ::: :: After being thoroughly mosque'd out, we headed to the famous "balloon" town Göreme within the Cappadocia region. Göreme is stunningly scenic little town that is an Instagram tourist haven and in turn is a bit of a tourist trap. But we still enjoyed it! ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img{src="/august-rock-formation" alt="Well-endowed rock formations, Gorkundere Valley" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-goreme" alt="Sunset at Göreme" no-margin} :::: ::: :: We did a full-day hike through Rose valley, coming across impressively well-endowed rock formations, historical abandoned cave churches and a friendly dog who guided us. This was one of my favourite hikes, we had the trail almost entirely to ourselves, it was scenic and exploring the caves with our new dog friend was fun. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img{src="/august-hike.png" alt="Start of the Rose Valley hike" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-cave-outside.png" alt="One of the many abandoned cave dwellings" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-hike-rope.png" alt="Rope climb featuring a friendly dog" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-cave-church-2.png" alt="Walking around inside an abandoned Cave Church" no-margin} :::: ::: :: The balloons were expensive, so I decided to skip. But I did hear good things and the ground view itself was pretty impressive. ::prose-img{src="/august-balloons" alt="Göreme Sunrise Balloons" no-margin} :: ## 🇧🇬 Bulgaria Bulgaria was the start of the Balkans for us, which meant I was in for a lot of cheese pies and more kebabs. We did a quick couple of days in Plovid, which had a nice old town and some interesting Roman ruins. Then we were off to the capital city Sofia. It had some interesting architecture and a nice park. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img{src="/august-sofia-2" alt="Government of Bulgaria, Sofia" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-sofia-3.png" label="St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia" no-margin} :::: ::: :: From Sofia, we went to do Seven Rila Lakes hike, which was one of our highlights. The hike is a chair lift, followed by a 3-hour ascent to the peek. Along the way you'll see 7 lakes, each at a different altitude. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img{src="/august-rila-lake-start.png" alt="Start of the Seven Rila Lake hike" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-rila-lake-2.png" label="About half way up" no-margin} :::: ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-rila-lake-3.png label: One of the 7 lakes alt: One of the lakes of the Sven Rila Lake Hike no-margin: true ``` :::: ::: :: It was a fun hike, everyone had brought their dogs along and had picnics at the lakes. You get to the peak, and it's a stunning view - if the clouds aren't blocking it. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-rila-lake.png label: Some nice waterfalls near the top alt: Seven Rila Lake Hike Waterfall no-margin: true ``` :::: ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-rila-lake-fog.png label: A bit too foggy at the peak alt: Seven Rila Lake Hike Top Very Foggy no-margin: true ``` :::: ::: :: ## 🇲🇰 North Macedonia We spent a couple of days in Skopje, a city characterised by an excess of modern statues and monuments. Many of them artificially made to look historical. ::prose-img{src="/august-skopje" alt="Archaeological Museum, Skopje"} :: A nice day trip from Skopje is Matka Canyon, you can do some nice hiking, lake swims and kayaking. ::prose-img{src="/august-canyon-hike" alt="Matka Canyon Hike"} :: The rest of our time in North Macedonia was spent in Ohrid, a beautiful lake town. It seems to be the holiday destination of choice for anyone in the Balkans who doesn't have easy access to the coast. Every night we were there, there was a festival on the lake, with fireworks, music and rides. ::prose-img{src="/august-ohrid" label="Quintessential shot of Lake Ohrid"} :: ## 🇦🇱 Albania We didn't know much about Albania beforehand, we had heard good things from other travellers though and we were excited. They told us about the friendly locals, and it was beautiful nature. Our first stop was Gjirokastër, Albania. Gjirokastër is a UNESCO world heritage site, with a classic old town and castle. We got a good workout climbing up to the castle, which had some nice views. ::prose-img{src="/august-girokaster.png" label="Sunset Gjirokastër, Albania"} :: We also did a day trip to the Blue Eye, which is a natural spring that is a stunning blue colour. You can jump from a few metres up into the water, which was fun. ::prose-img{src="/august-blue-eye.png" label="Blue Eye Lake, Albania"} :: From there, we hit the coastal town of Himarë. Himarë is one of the remaining chill beach towns in the Balkans, that hasn't been completely overrun with tourism development. ::prose-img{src="/august-himare.png" label="Himarë sunset"} :: Our last stop for Albania was the Northern town of Shkodër. From Shkodër you can go and stay in the Albanian Alp town of Theth. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-theth.png label: The view from where we were staying alt: Theth Mountains no-margin: true ``` :::: ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-theth-2.png label: Another view from where we were staying alt: Theth Mountains no-margin: true ``` :::: ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-theth-3.png label: Mountainside from a hike alt: Theth Mountains no-margin: true ``` :::: ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-theth-4.png label: One more - I really liked them! alt: Theth Mountains no-margin: true ``` :::: ::: :: We spent 4 days in Theth, doing the Volbona pass hike and chasing waterfalls. It was really cosy and relaxing to be surrounded by the mountains, it was a good recovery from the fast pace of the Balkans. ::expand :::div{.grid.grid-cols-2.gap-5.my-15} ::::prose-img ```yaml [props] src: /august-theth-mountain-cow.png label: A mountain cow towards the peak! alt: Cow in Theth Mountains no-margin: true ``` :::: ::::prose-img{src="/august-theth-mountain-2.png" label="View from the peak, it was really foggy." no-margin} :::: ::: :: ## September Plan - 🚌 Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechia