It was time to set off again, heading towards the little village of Lazaropole, where I had booked a night in a traditional Ottoman guesthouse. It would be the first place in almost one week where I would have hot water and a private bathroom, so I was really looking forward to it. (I guess hot water was the motivation that pushed me -despite all my reasonable hesitations- forward along the tortuous and arduous mountain road leading to the village of Lazaropole). 

Lazaropole is a picturesque, fairy-talish mountain village well-known for the freshness of its air, which locals claim to be the heathiest in the Balkans.

It is a popular mountain destination but, when I was there, there was just me and the hotel owner and, later that evening, a friend of the owner who stopped by the hotel to celebrate his birthday and who was so kind as to invite me to join their table for a glass of red Macedonian wine.

Sitting by the water at a lakeside café in the charming UNESCO heritage city of Ohrid, in southwestern Macedonia, 

I was looking forward to ordering breakfast. The sun was sparkling on the lake’s surface, fishermen in wooden boats were bringing in the catch of the day, and the iconic dome of the Orthodox Church of St. John at Kaneo perched on a craggy outcrop of rock rose behind me. 

Then the café owner suggested the local dish: fish stew. At 9am? I wasn’t convinced. But in the spirit of trying new things, I said yes and was presented with a light, lemony broth (a bargain at only £1.20!), featuring tasty flakes of freshly caught lake trout. It was utterly delicious and yet another surprising thing about a country I barely knew anything about. 

Macedonia is a fascinating (and highly underrated) holiday destination. It’s roughly the size of Belgium and lends itself perfectly to being explored by car, as getting to and between the main cities and sights is speedy and straightforward.

Part of the former Yugoslavia, it’s bordered by Greece, Albania, Serbia, Kosovo and Bulgaria, and although it’s landlocked it boasts more than 50 lakes, many of which offer boating, sailing, kayaking or diving.

You’ll also find three vast national parks, perfect for hiking, rock-climbing and even caving; and several grape-producing regions, which result in some phenomenal – and phenomenally cheap – bottles of wine (look out for the robust red variety, Vranac). 

Ohrid was probably the biggest tourist resort I’d never heard of. Visitors flock in their thousands from all over the world to experience its lake – one of the oldest, and deepest, in Europe – and historic sights. One of the most important is the reconstructed, terracotta-tiled, Byzantine monastery of St. Panteleimon. Dating from the 10th Century AD, it has been fought over, demolished and rebuilt many times since then, by the hordes of Romans, Slavs and Ottoman Turks that have invaded the region over the centuries. 

I wandered around its echoing, high-roofed interior, then gazed at the perfectly preserved mosaic floors in the grounds outside, designed with beautiful details like deer and birds. Later that afternoon, I also visited the impressive Roman amphitheatre, dating from around 200BC, which used to play host to fierce gladiatorial battles.

Visitors to the country will fly in to the capital, Skopje (the birthplace of Mother Teresa) which, when 

I wandered around it on arrival, reminded me, oddly, of Las Vegas. While it has some attractive old neighbourhoods – I particularly loved the Old Bazaar, a maze of polished stone streets – five years ago the government decided to give the city more appeal, in the wake of a huge earthquake that destroyed around 80 per cent of the city in 1963.

This resulted in a lot of money spent on building giant, towering statues of some of Macedonia’s historic figures, including Alexander the Great and former ruler King Philip II. There are also some shiny, white, Caesars Palace-style structures lining the city’s river Vardar, which house museums and civic buildings.

Just 20 minutes outside the capital, though, and you can be in the heart of rural Macedonia. Matka Canyon is a vast, towering gorge, cut through by the Treska river, and home to several medieval ruins and dozens of caves.

I took a short boat trip (£2.50 return) along to the 2,000-year-old Vrelo Cave, and climbed down a succession of slippery steps into the dank gloom. Its underground chambers are lined with dripping stalagmites and stalactites; the biggest one sticks right down in the middle, and is known as the Pine Cone. 

A further 90-minute drive took me to the lushly forested Mavrovo National Park. In the winter, you can ski in its mountains, but in summertime you’re more likely to find hikers and campers, keen to spot endangered wildlife like lynx and wolves which are all protected here. Alas, I didn’t see any, but on a lovely wander round its lakefront, 

I was drawn to the iconic, half-submerged Church of St Nicholas. 

My last port of call before heading home was the cultural city of Bitola. I visited its central clock tower, said to have been built in the 16th Century with the help of more than 60,000 eggs (which, mixed into the cement, was meant to make the walls stronger).

I then parked myself at the outdoor table of one of the many cafés that line the main pedestrianised street, Širok Sokak. Thankfully the waiter didn’t offer me fish stew, but the molten chocolate cake I had with my coffee was a final, satisfying taste of this charming country.

Ten things you must do in Macedonia

1 Have a shot of rakija, the (strong!) local spirit. It’s a type of brandy, made with fruit, and comes in many flavours.

2 Tackle the steep, 30-minute walk up to the Duf waterfall at Rostushe, in Mavrovo National Park. The thundering falls are well worth the puffing and panting!

3 Take a tour of one of the many wineries in Tikves; taste samples at Popova Kula (popovakula.com.mk) or Stobi (stobiwinery.mk).

4 Check out the Museum of the City of Skopje, which is home to hundreds of cultural artefacts from the capital’s fascinating past.

5 Daredevils can try white water kayaking through Matka Canyon, or canoeing on the backwaters if that’s too terrifying!

6 Pay a visit to the Memorial House of Mother Teresa to see the church where she was first baptised and which shaped her life (memorialhouseofmotherteresa.com).

7 Bring home a jar of ajvar, the popular red pepper dip you’ll see on every restaurant and kitchen table.

8 Time your visit with the annual Beer Festival held in July in the picturesque town of Prilep, two hours from Skopje (pivofestival.mk).

9 Visit a reconstruction of what Ohrid would have looked like around 1200 BC at the Bay of the Bones museum, which floats on the lake.

10 Scoff a burek for breakfast like the locals do – it’s a savoury, flaky pastry stuffed with spinach, feta or minced meat.

SOURCE: EXPRESS.CO.UK

Sveti Jovan Bigorski (St. John the Baptist Monastery).

This place was built in the 11th century but recent renovation works made it look all new and shiny.

I arrived there a few minutes before evening mass, stumbling upon dozens of black cassocks hurrying through the cobbled yard at the sound of the bell.

Once the long-bearded priests were all gone, the monastery was suddenly quiet and there was just me wandering around its steep alleys and admiring the beautiful view over the valley, while the sun was disappearing behind the forested mountains of Mavrovo Park.

The town of Ohrid is one of the oldest human settlements in Europe and built on Lake Ohrid itself, which is estimated to be between 1-3 million years old. The lake is so deep, that they are still constantly pulling things out of it. It is basically the Mary Poppins bag of lakes. Just last year, it was reported they found remains from a WWII plane belonging to the British.

Ohrid, Macedonia has been referred to as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans’ and is also one of the only places in the world selected as both a a Natural and cultural UNESCO World Heritage site.

Basically what we took this to mean is that 1) we are going to see some really old stuff, and 2) It is going to be really good looking old stuff.

We were not disappointed. Here are some images to give you an idea of just how insanely beautiful this place is. Hopefully it will be a short vacation for your eyeballs today.

We Need To Talk About Macedonia
I stepped off the bus and in to my very own Macedonian fairytale. How is it that I never knew Skopje was so beautiful? How is it not on every traveller’s bucket list? It needs to be.

When I arrived in Skopje, I went for a ramble around the city to orientate myself. It was night-time and the centre of the city was all lit up, so I followed the lights, dragging my jaw with me.

Along the river in central Skopje are stunning buildings, bridges celebrating Macedonian history and art, and huge decorative ships with bars and restaurants on board. Classical music is piped through a public tannoy system. I saw a few teenagers with hoodies pulled low over their sulky faces, feet betraying them as they tapped along to Beethoven.

I couldn’t believe it. I expected another post-communist, bland Balkan city. Instead, I saw a city filled with culture, history, art, life, architecture, energy and youth. A country in its infancy that has barely shaken off its communist hangover, I hadn’t expected that Macedonia (or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, if you must get political about it) would have found its feet quite yet. I was astounded to see it wasn’t just on its feet, it was sprinting far ahead of its Balkan neighbours.

Love at First Sight

I fell in love with Skopje at first sight and it only continued to get better. I was in the lap of luxury staying at Get Inn Skopje. The morning after I arrived, I went on a voyage of discovery through the city and learned about its dramatic history, its proud people and its rich heritage. I learned about the devastating effects of the earthquake that destroyed the city in 1963 and saw the evidence of rebuilding still taking place all these years later. I admired the architecture and the urban planning of a city on the rise. For someone who’s not normally a museum person, I managed to happily while away half the day in the archaeology museum. I got completely sucked in by the stories of Alexander the Great, Romans, Byzantines, Greeks and Ottomans; invasion, economy, treachery and revolution.

I had been trying to make plans with refugee charities to volunteer in Macedonia for a while before I got there, but kept coming up against dead ends, cryptic messages, no replies and apparent inactivity of the NGOs and groups I tried to volunteer with. I had a feeling that I was missing an important piece of a puzzle.

Maybe I shouldn’t admit that I felt some relief that volunteering wasn’t working out. I could enjoy Macedonia as a tourist without commitments or hours to keep. I felt a little guilty for thinking it, but I couldn’t change the fact that I didn’t seem to be wanted as a volunteer. I couldn’t even gather very much information. I decided to spend two days just exploring before I started move on to volunteer in Greece. I made plans with fellow travellers. We hiked at the beautiful Matka canyon, we climbed through caves, we discovered Macedonian hospitality.

My Very Own Fortress

The real magic happened at Skopje fortress. If you’ve been following my blog, you know how much I love fortresses. If you know anything about my book, you’ll know I love castles. Battles and sieges fascinate me. I can drift off into my own little world and my imagination takes over and runs riot. Well, she got her moment to shine in Skopje.

I was on my own at the fortress. It’s mostly closed off for rebuilding works. It’s one of the sites that was damaged in the 1963 earthquake and went ignored under communist rule, so reconstruction is taking place now. There’s also some archaeological work going on, so it appears from the outside to be shut. I accessed it through a little gate at the back of the fortress and navigated my way around the construction site and equipment to climb onto the battlements.

A security guard bobbed around in the distance, but otherwise, it was my very own fortress. This made me very happy. I was hopping around the fortress like a giddy goat, prancing along crumbling walls. Stones were falling from under my feet but it didn’t matter, I was moving too quickly for it to affect me. I was completely indifferent to any health and safety concerns. For the first time on this trip, cautious, old Ruth stayed right where she should be – far away from the fun.

I was there for hours. I investigated every stone, climbed on every surface and hung dangerously close to edges with sheer drops. I was kept company by my imagination until the sun had set and my camera battery had run low. I then realised that I didn’t know what time the fortress closed at.

I looked around but couldn’t see the security guard I had spotted earlier. He had noticed me too, hadn’t he? I started to take note of the construction site and the materials lying around, looking particularly unsafe for visitors. Was I supposed to be here? I had seen a sign on the way in. It was written in Macedonian. I had toddled on past it.

I was on the other side of the fortress now. I couldn’t see an exit. Was there only one? Something felt really wrong. I headed back to the little gate I had come in through. I should tell you at this point that Ruth + Anxiety = not a good combination. But this anxiety was tinged with a weird kind of excitement.

‘Are we locked into our very own Fortress?’ asked my imagination.

Her excitement was palpable.

I mentally swatted her away, but she continued to bubble.

‘Oh, the adventures we could have.’

I kept walking towards the gate.

‘Is it warm enough to rough it? Maybe we’ll have to scale the wall. Where’s Rapunzel when you need her? Are there dragons?’

Stop!

She quietened.

I saw the exit and my pulse quickened. So did my feet. I trotted towards the closed gate with a feeling of pure panic. What was I going to do?

I must have looked pretty crazed. At least that’s the look I got from the guard who re-appeared from nowhere, probably hanging around waiting for me to leave. I released the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. I grinned oafishly at the guard and babbled something in a language neither local nor my own. And myself and my imagination grinned and giggled all the way down the hill and back into the old town of Skopje.

It may have been then that I knew I loved Macedonia. And maybe that’s how two days turned into nine.

Around Macedonia

I didn’t stay in Skopje, though. On one of those days, I wound my way through the narrow alleys of the old bazaar. It was drizzling a little, so I had the streets all to myself (it turns out Macedonians don’t like rain). I could feel a storm coming on and, being a fan of stormy weather and well aquatinted with rain, I was perfectly content in my little drizzly bubble.

That is until I passed a little Turkish cafe. The owner and his friends were huddled inside out of the rain. One of the group tried to persuade me to come in until the weather improved. After I’d turned him down and carried on along the slippery cobbles, I realised that a coffee might have been a good idea. I’d been walking for a few hours. It was cold. Maybe the rain wasn’t so pleasant after all.

As I passed on the way back, they banged on the window, and gestured me again to come in. The owner came outside to tell me how good his coffee was. I gave in and I went inside.

This is where I met Anna, a Polish exchange student who was working in the coffee shop. She was stumped at my decision to stay in Skopje.

“But Why?” She asked, “When there are so many more beautiful places in Macedonia.”

I had no answer. I had no idea there were more beautiful places in Macedonia. Was that possible?

“Do you have to be at work on Monday?” She asked. I told her I didn’t and she proceeded to plan out a trip to Ohrid, a lake in west Macedonia. She showed me photos. I was sold.

I wasn’t sorry. The day that I arrived in Ohrid, I could see what Anna meant about it being beautiful. I walked a lot. I climbed up to the old fortress and sat on the battlements for ages with a tattered old book, my camera and my thoughts. It was perfect.

And while I wondered why the rest of the world didn’t know about Macedonia, a huge part of me was delighted that I got to be in on Europe’s best kept secret.

Source: Rambling Ruth

You should know by now that I pick my destinations in very unusual ways, from going to a place because I fancy its name to browsing the Google maps app randomly. This time, I wanted to go to Mavrovo Lake to find the abandoned Church of St. Nikolas, which is half submerged during the winter season giving the impression of floating atop the waves.

Apparently, all the rain of the previous days wasn’t enough so, once in Mavrovo Park, what I found was just an abandoned church stuck in the mud. Pretty striking, anyway.

German Arte channel broadcast a documentary on the popular crushed pepper from the Bitola village of Bukovo. The short film about the famous Bukovka spice is focused on Ilinka Glavevska and her family, who explains the procedure on preparing the spice, and the main dishes it is used in.

Bosnian born German movie maker Mirjana Momirovic produced and directed the film that is presented Bukovka as a slow food specialty on Arte. Momirovic already worked on projects aimed to present the Macedonian ruby stone and on wines from the Vardar region. The Bukovka short film is part of a series of 200 episodes produced for Arte.

Full text on our German Tourism Blog

Free from the tourist hordes, ex-footballer Pece Cvetkovski’s Villa Dihovo offers a sweet retreat where you pay ‘what you like’ for his home-grown organic cuisine.

Macedonia? Why not? There’s something glorious about being a tourist in a place that attracts so few. The country’s abundant viti­culture and vast national parks have some­how been overlooked by tourists in favour of more glamorous Balkan countries such as Croatia, but slowly the nation is edging away from the shadow of Yugoslav rule. One of Macedonia’s main propo­nents of tourism is ex-footballer Pece Cvetkovski. Having played for the local team – as well as FK Skopje, in the capital, and in Denmark – Cvetkovski is something of a celebrity in these parts, and he invites guests to stay where he grew up, at Villa Dihovo, near the city of Bitola, in the southwest­ern reaches of the landlocked country.

Sounds remote. Yep. Don’t bother with trains, either; Balkan buses are more comfortable, and they run frequently from Skopje. Care hire is also a doddle (about €120/HK$1,000 for three days) and petrol is dirt cheap. About 7km from the unremar­k­able city of Bitola, you’re likely to be bowl­ed over as soon as you reach Villa Dihovo – literally – as Cvetkovski’s snow-white sled dog will no doubt jump up in excitement as you step out of the car, perhaps causing you to stumble into the meti­culously planted organic vegetable garden. Eek.

Organic vegetable garden? Cvetkovski is a certified producer for the Slow Food organisa­tion, which promotes clean eating, using only organic vegetables and very little meat. Macedonia, by the way, is still one of the biggest producers of organic food, so it’s common for residents to have kitchen gardens. Home-cooked food served in Villa Dihovo’s comfy dining room makes for a wonderful return after a long day’s hiking in the nearby Pelister National Park. Favourites include stuffed, dried and spiced rezha peppers, foraged mushrooms and the tavce gravce, a Macedonian dish of high quality beans baked in tomato sauce. Burrow underground, into Cvetkovski’s natural wine cave, to choose a bottle for dinner, at the suggested price – or “donation” – of US$10.

Can we take a bottle up to our room? Absolutely. Cvetkovski also brews his own (surprisingly, very good) beer and he’ll no doubt give you a few of those to see off upstairs, too. There are only a couple of rooms at present, and they’re decorated like a folklorean dream: wooden ornaments and rickety bedsteads forged from tree trunks stand opposite a window framing views of the national park. There’s blissfully little else to do other than eat, sleep and wander the grounds, performing a vege­table roll-call from one plant bed to another.

Wait, what’s that about a national park? Well, other than the Slow Food and the general feeling of abandon that comes with being in a Macedonian country house in the middle of nowhere, Pelister National Park is the main reason people stay with Cvetkovski. After a short but dramatic drive up the foothills of the Baba Mountain, the host (who offers lifts every­where) will leave hiking guests by the unashamedly 1970s Hotel Molica. Be sure to stop in for a drink and a gawp at the fabulous throwback block-green interiors and mini indoor lake. Park hikes last anything from an hour or so to a long, full day, and take in lofty panoramic views of Christmas tree firs on mountain sides that fold like layers of icing off into the distance. The ultimate hike leads you to natural lakes atop the mountain.

What are we looking at, price wise? One night at Villa Dihovo is €40, and for dinner and drinks, Cvetkovski asks that you “pay what you like”. A cookery school is scheduled to open at Villa Dihovo in time for the summer, as will additional rooms. Guests are encouraged to stay for two or three nights, and take part in foraging and fishing trips.

SOURCE LINK

It’s so interesting to visit a country that has so much history, yet it is so new to the eyes of our modern world. Macedonia still has an air of mystery that makes this mountainous, off the beaten path country an intriguing destination of real discovery.

Here are a few facts that you might not yet know about Macedonia, but that speak part of the interesting and mysterious character of this country.

1 – There are (supposed) parts of the cross on which Jesus was crucified in the foundations of the monasteries of St. Bogodorica Prechista in Kichevo, and St. Jovan Bigorski and St. Georgij Pobedonosec in Debar.

2 – According to NASA, Kokino is the fourth oldest astronomic observatory in the world; with the oldest three being Abu Simbel, Egypt; Stonehenge, Great Britain; and Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Kokino is located approximately 30 km from the town of Kumanovo, and about 6 km from the Serbian border.

3 – Ohrid Lake is the oldest and one of the deepest lakes in Europe (max depth 288m or 940ft). It is estimated 4 million years old and has 200 endemic species that haven’t been found at any other place in the world. It was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1979.

4 – Mother Theresa of Calcutta was born in Skopje, Macedonia. Even though she was born in Skopje, she was Albanian by ethnicity at the time of her birth in 1910. Today, you can see museum house dedicated to her in the center of the capital city of Skopje.

5 – Macedonia is the only country that got independence from Yugoslavia without shedding a single drop of blood. It remained entirely at peace at the heat of Yugoslav wars in early 1990s and got independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

6 – Another interesting feature about this country is that it has more number of mountains and mountain peaks than any other country in the world. The country has as many as 34 mountain peaks, each with a height of more than 2,000 meters above the sea-level; with Mount Golem Karb being the highest at 2,753 meters above sea-level. Most peaks in Macedonia have never been visited by people.

7 – The Cyrillic alphabet, official in Macedonia, is based on the alphabet developed in the 9th century by two Macedonian (Region) brothers – St Cyril (thus – Cyrillic) and St Methodius. It was taught by their disciples at a monastery in Ohrid, from whence it spread across the eastern Slavic world.

8 – The official name of Macedonia in the United Nations is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM. This is due to a long dispute the country has with Greece regarding their history as the former Kingdom of Macedonia. Even though they’re officially FYROM in the U.N, the government has persuaded more than 130 countries (135 at the time of publication), including the United States, to recognize it as the Republic of Macedonia.

9 – Skopje has suffered quite a few devastating earthquakes throughout history, the biggest ones in 518 and in 1963, leveling most of the city. In addition, the Austro-Hungarian General Piccolomini ordered the city burnt down in the 18th Century.

10 – Alexander the Great, who was king of the former Kingdom of Macedonia, was the first world-size conqueror who extended his empire across Greece and Persia to India and Egypt. During his time, the Kingdom of Macedonia was the most powerful state in the world; but after his death, the empire fell apart and it became the first Roman province in 146 B.C.

11 – Since becoming an independent nation in 1991, Macedonia has had two flags. Both its first flag and the current flag feature a yellow sun on a red background. The first version was based on a symbol found on ancient tombstones discovered in 1977 in the town of Vergina. However, Vergina is in Greek Macedonia and Greece decided to claim that they owned the copyright to use the symbol.in order to force Macedonia to change its flag, Greece blocked trade with the Republic of Macedonia and forced the UN headquarters in New York to take down the Macedonian flag. As a compromise, and to restart trading with their Greek neighbours, Macedonia changed its flag to its current one from 1995.

12 – The country’s name derives from the ancient Greek Kingdom of Macedonia; which was named after the ancient Macedonians. Their name, Μακεδόνες (Makedónes), derives ultimately from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός (makednós), meaning “tall, taper”. The name is originally believed to have meant either “highlanders” or “the tall ones”, possibly referring to the physical character of the ancient Macedonians and/or their mountainous land.

13 – The cave Peshna in Makedonski Brod was described by New York Times as looking “exactly like Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings”.

14 – The Millennium Cross is a 66 metre-high cross situated on the top of the Vodno Mountain in Skopje, and it is the biggest cross in the world. It was constructed to serve as a memorial of 2,000 years of Christianity in Macedonia and the world.

SOURCE