Today we started with a lap through the city of Elbasan to meet the Mayor in the centre of the city, with all the police escort that one could wish for.

The Mayor offered us his kind words and held the torch with us.

We then ran on the hilly road towards the Macedonian border. Nature here is beautiful and just a look to the sides always gives new enthusiasm and energy to the runners.

A look to the left...

...and a look to the right. Yes, there are many friends that we meet on the road who support us.

The ceremony in the city was great; all the people who came up to the square were very enthusiastic.

They guessed all the countries that we come from correctly, so we sang our song for them.

A lot of kids ran with us through the city and some of them also continued quite a bit further.

On our way to the border with Macedonia, a police car needed some oil, so we gave ours - to help the car up the last hill!

From the top, we could see Ohridsko Lake, a sight definitely worth seeing. It is amazing to see how large it is, at an altitude of 1000 metres.

Tedi's grandson Regli gave us all flowers and we had to say goodbye to them. Tedi's great organizational skills and big, big heart we won't forget. Thank you, Tedi and Regli!

Amur, the great Balkan coordinator who guided us through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania, had to leave as well; it has been a wonderful journey, indeed! We all had a lot of joy together. Thank you Albania! See you next year...

At the border, we also parted with our cameraman from the national TV station; he was with us during the whole stay in Albania and is going to make a half-hour long documentary about the World Harmony Run.

After crossing the border, we met our fresh Macedonian runners - which was just what we needed.

Our first stop on the Macedonian side was Struga. From there, we ran along Ohridsko Lake towards Ohrid.

Kids who joined us liked to run with the torch along the shore and kept on going for surprisingly long distances.

The clouds were getting darker, and in the city of Ohrid the rain poured down on us.

But that didn't prevent our little friends from Ohrid from enjoying the run even more! We ran together to the port, and that was the end of running for today.

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Team Members:
Martin Leitner (Austria), Jana Chochlikova (Slovakia), Tatiana Chochlikova (Slovakia), Frank Foerster (Germany), Safet Belegovic (Montenegro)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

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Bulgaria 19 May