5-Days of R&R at Lake Ohrid, Macedonia

People around here call Lake Ohrid, the Macedonian Riviera, as it's the closest Macedonia will ever get to having a coastline.  The lake is one of the oldest and deepest in Europe, sharing it with Albania on the southwestern side.  It appears many Europeans have discovered this beautiful lake getaway so the small town is quite built-up with hotels and restaurants to accommodate the tourists.  Fortunately for us, we got here just in time to see the August holiday crowd pack-up and go home, leaving us to enjoy the serenity of the crystal clear waters surrounded by the Dinaric Alps mountain range undisturbed, except for a few lingering retirees. 

Macedonian landscape 

There are many buses that leave the capital city of Macedonia, Skopje, daily for $9/pp.  After 3 hours driving through a wind-y, mountainous road, we arrived in the small town of Ohrid.  The bus made 2 stops - the first one closer to the town center, while the second stop was the actual bus terminal about 2.5 km away from the center.  We should've gotten off at the first stop, but not knowing, we rode to the bus station where we took a cab to our home-away-from-home for 5 days: Villa Dislieski ($57/double/night).

Archeologists claim that Ohrid is one of the oldest human settlements in all of Europe, first mentioned by the Greeks in 300 BC.  During the Byzantine period, Ohrid was a cultural and economic hub.  As such, there are plenty of ancient churches, fortress walls, and cobblestone streets to explore.  Below are photos of the old town of Ohrid, Church of Saint Sophia, Kaneo Village along the cliffs, and Mala Bogorodica Chapel built into the cliff wall surrounding a cave with water that has sprung for centuries. 

Probably the most iconic image of Ohrid is Saint John Kaneo Church, a Macedonian Orthodox church from the 13th century, built right on the cliff overlooking the lake.

From the remains of Samuel's Fortress at the top of the hill provided a nice view of the entire city.

The hills provided a nice place for a hike.

Ancient theatre from the Hellinistic Period, 200 BC.  It's still being used today.  There was a huge T-Mobile sponsored billboard for some event/show that just occurred.

The food options in Macedonia are all the same.  Lots of meat or pasta and pizza!  Good news is, the food cost is very cheap.  A full 3-course dinner with bottle of wine barely costs us $30 for the two of us.  We've had some of the traditional foods but we can't eat it everyday!  They have a popular grilled meat dish called Pljeskavica, like a hamburger party eaten in the Balkans, spiced with paprika, salt, garlic, and onions.  They also eat a lot of goat and sheep's cheese in these parts.  We had some monastery cheese.  There are some indigenous fish to this lake that is served on a platter.  Some fish like the Ohrid trout, salmo letnica, is highly endangered and illegal to catch...but somehow shows up on the menu at many of these restaurants for quite a high price.  The plasnica, or small lake fish are bountiful so we had a fish fry!  We seemed to have visited the Hotel Tino Restaurant most nights.  The menu was extensive, good taste, decent prices, live entertainment nightly, and close to our hotel.  

We thoroughly enjoyed the amazing views of this lake!  Being able to sit and be still with the lake was very calming to the soul.  What a wonderful little place to visit to get away from it all.