Drove from Skopje in the afternoon to Ohrid, an adorable resort city on the shore of Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. The drive took about 3 hours, so we didn’t get to town until twilight, but it was a beautiful sunset - reds blending into oranges, sinking below the Albanian mountain range across the lake. Louise set all of us up at Alekanders, an excellent restaurant 10 feet from the water and just off the start of the walking promenade in town.
All of us enjoyed some local Macedonia wine and beer while the Aussie’s ate meat things, Robby and I got to have delicious vegetables. It’s nice to eat something besides a tomato, cucumber, or chicken sometimes. After dinner we all walked along the water back to our swanky hotel - Villa Arte. Even though it’s at the far end of town (5 mins from the center of town) and you walk out the back door, through someone’s backyard, and down a sketchy looking street to the beach 25 yards away, the hotel is lovely. Comfortable patio chairs under a shaded awning and then a breakfast area set up in the main lobby with a 24 hour bar. We all enjoyed sharing travel experiences over post dinner drinks and ice cream in the hotel lobby, before bed.
The following morning, Zejko, our van driver, elected to spend his 1 day off chauffeuring all of us to the tourist sites in the area (we would have had to paid $13 for the sightseeing boat otherwise). First stop was the Monastery of Saint Naum. Was established in 905 AD for the Bulgarian Empire by St. Naum himself (I don’t really know what he did, but people liked him). He is also buried on the grounds. His church resides on a hill overlooking the crystal clear blue water of Lake Ohrid and has a quarter mile tree lined road leading up to the front doors that conmen try to entrap tourist with paying for a cab to take. Along the road are souvenir shops, restaurants, lookout points, and live peacocks.
There’s also a calm lake that only row boats are allow on, one in which the Aussies and us took to see underwater springs - bubbles coming up from the bottom of the 3 meter or less, lake floor. Since no swimming or motors are allowed in the lake (not Lake Ohrid), the water is extremely clear and a whole plant civilization thrives underwater.
From the Monastery, we drove back to town, via a mini stop at the Bay of Bones - what was once a thriving city where people lived on reed islands on the water, is now only a small replica of one island with fake furnished houses and remains of bones from the animals the people ate (what anthropologists found when they dug up the society). I think there’s a mini museum as well, but none of us actually went to visit the site, we just stopped atop the hill to take pictures of the village and the lake, much to the dismay of Robby.
Back in town, instead of making us walk from Ohrid’s new town to Samuel’s Fortress, the capital for the first Bulgarian Empire back in the 10th century, Zejko kindly drove us to the start of the old city walls to begin our hike up hill. The large and empty Fortress sits on top a descent size hill at the end of old town and is a great lookout point for the whole city. The new city sits on the water, but for 1000’s of years there has been a town at the base of the Fortress, this town still exist today and is where we started walking half a mile to the outer walls of the Fortress for a 180 view of the surround areas. Lots of newer houses to one end, the lake and Albania in the middle, and the newer part of town at the other end.
Robby and I had fun climbing up the watch towers and stopping at every crevice hide-E-hole that might have been used for storage or a bathroom, or a nap room at the Fortress. The torret at the top over looked all those wanting to enter the gates. Back on the ground, we descended through the forest, on the backend of the Fortress, to one of Ohrid’s most famous churches- Saint John at Kaneo. This Macedonian Orthodox Church resides on a cliff over looking Kaneo Bay on Lake Ohrid and was built sometime around the 1440’s. It’s dedicated to John of Patmos, the man who wrote the book of Revelations. The Church is made from red bricks layered between stones and topped with red tiles. A crowned torret sits in the center and arched window inlays surround the whole building. If there weren’t so many selfie stick, iPad snapping, moronic tourists about, it would have been a lovely place to sit and be one with your thoughts for a bit.
Since that wasn’t the case, we headed back to new town along the lake, walking across wobbly planks of wood and past delicious smelling seafood restaurants to the promenade. Robby and I stopped for huge scoops of homemade gelato that costs about $1.50 before sticking our heads in a few of the local silver and pearl shops. Apparently the famous Ohrid pearl is manmade using hand-me-down methods that might involve hand painting ground shells with an emulsion derived from fish scales. All I know is, the pearls are a lovely, shiny charcoal color and look nothing like the typical white kind posh people like to wear.
We didn’t buy anything, but sometimes it’s fun to browse. For the evening, we caught the tail end of sunset, the fiery ball sinking quickly below the Albanian mountains leaving streaks of red, orange, and yellow in its wake over the calm blue water. If I wasn’t so lazy, I would have walked the mile back to the Church just to photograph the sunset behind the building, but I’m on vacation and one more mile, after walking upwards of 10 miles a day for the past 2 weeks, is just one more mile too many. Although, Robby and I did decide to turn left at the water’s edge, instead of right (towards new town), and we ended up walking at least a mile along a modern walking, biking, running pathway bordered by a grass field on one side and the lake on the other. We finished the evening with a Macedonian pizza dinner - thickish dough with toppings. I had an amazing olive oil garlic pizza while Robby got tomato sauce and canned mushrooms. Not a top favorite pizza.
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