Macedonia: Ohrid

After departing Tirana, we crossed the border into Macedonia. Our first stop was at the Monastery of Saint Naum, which is just across the border. It is located on the slopes of Mount Galicia near the shore of Lake Ohrid, which is the largest lake in Macedonia, and one of the oldest lakes (maybe even the oldest) in Europe. The monastery dates back to 900 CE, and as we arrived, we were able to watch a baptism taking place. After the crowd cleared out, we were able to visit the rest of the church and view the tomb of St. Naum and look at the frescos.

We then had lunch by the lake, and then made our way to our hotel. The following day, we set off to discover the lovely lakeside town of Ohrid, which is one of the oldest human settlements in Europe, and the entire town is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We stopped at a handmade paper workshop and saw a demonstration of how they make the paper, and then visited a lot of really old churches. Ohrid has over 365 churches, and although it seemed like we visited them all, we really only visited three of them. First was St. Sophia church which had a few really nice frescos. We continued walking and saw an Ancient Greek amphitheater. Then we stopped and visited St. Clement's church, which was really old and had some of the most amazing frescos I've ever seen. In fact, anyone who studies orthodox icons and frescos comes to the particular church to study them. They were really quite nice and I could see why art enthusiasts would make the pilgrimage here. We then visited St. Pantelejmon Monastery, which is the oldest Slav monastery in the world. They are excavating Greek ruins all around the old church, which made a neat contrast, with the ruins of columns and Byzantine mosaics.

We then had lunch and then free time to explore the city, which has a medieval fortress and is surrounded by old fortifications and walls. That night we went to a local restaurant where we enjoyed local music, and after dinner we were treated to local folk dancing. We even got to join in! It was a blast!

The following day we made our way to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Along the way we made one stop at the Orthodox Monastery of Saint John the Baptist (Sveti Jovan Bigorski) and saw several relics including a splinter from the cross on which Jesus was crucified and parts of various other saints. They also had some amazing wooden carvings called iconostasis. They were made of solid pieces of wood, intricately carved to depict scenes from the bible.

We stopped once more for lunch, then drove the rest of the way to Skopje, passing through canyons and following small rivers. It was a nice drive, but everyone was glad when we made it to Skopje and got checked into the last hotel of the trip!