Letter From Hamsher’s Ohrid

The monastery and church of Sveti Naum, on Lake Ohrid, which saddles North Macedonia and Albania and where author Willem Papel Hamsher was given bread by one of the monks on his bike ride across the Balkans. Photo by Matthew Stevenson.

I was earlier than I needed to be at the Skopje International Airport, so I settled into a chair overlooking the airfield and carried on with my book: W. Papel Hamsher’s The Balkans by Bicycle.

The account was first published in 1937, enjoyed a brief readership...