WEDNESDAY, MAY 29
As with every city, Ohrid has a list of places to visit. Among them are the National Museum, housed in an Tudor-style house; St. Sophia; the classical amphitheater; the fortresses atop the hill; and churches, churches, churches. We weren’t feeling ambitious, a bit burned out from the demands laid at our feet with each previous city, and we began adventuring slowly. Up the hill on which the city rests we climbed, through white homes with wooden framed windows, small gardens and potted plants of roses, poppies, and peonies, into narrow passages, and stepping on broken and imperfect stone stairs until we reached a small Orthodox church.
CHURCHES…
The church’s pebbled path lead to a thick, wooden door carved with flowers. It reminded me of Turkish carvings. Below a view of the lake broke through the trees that were abloom with white, fragrant flowers. The door was locked. We turned and went up some stairs to the garden. A thin, older man with a tiny grin walked toward us from the other side of the garden. He spoke Macedonian only but we understood from the skeleton key in his hand that he was the church’s keeper.
Like most of the Orthodox churches or monasteries in Ohrid, this one was small, built of thick stone walls and shaped like a square cross. Inside were all sorts of relics and treasures, frescoes and paintings from the 14th C to the present. It’s stone foundation dated to Roman times, bits of wall were from the 11th century. That which crumbled or was destroyed over time was repaired in another century.
Each church we saw during the day was unique but also similar. In one church, all the frescoes of saints had been defaced. Their eyes gouged out, reminding me of Cappadocia where Arab invaders defaced all 365 churches. We would see many churches with chipped away spots, in faces and bodies…and only learn much later that this wasn’t from defacing but instead done by believers who took pieces of the saints for protection.
The slight, kind keeper of the church welcomed us as guests, guiding us on a sort of tour…in Macedonian. Candies were offer to us upon entering (unlike some churches we visited over the course of the day that charged a small entrance fee). This was definitely the best of all the monasteries we would see. Dark, and cluttered, one century atop another, wood intricately painted, and paintings on wood, bits of remaining frescos, clothes with golden thread draped over wooden chairs and an ornate, if dusty, alter. When we left, the keeper locked the door behind us. He was probably off to lunch, which had been delayed on our behalf.
AMPHITHEATRE…
The Byzantine Church of Sveta Bogorodica Perivlepta, built in the 13th C, is one of the larger churches and was worth a visit as it is the pride of the people who live here. Just down the road is the Classical Amphitheatre, built by the Romans in the Hellenistic period around 200 BC, a theatre where gladiators once executed Christians. It’s still used today…but for quite different performances! We ate at the Gladiator Restaurant overlooking the amphitheatre, high on the hill beside it. The food was traditional and excellent. Chloe had beans, I had the casserole. And we were both given free shots at the end of the meal.
AND A FORTRESS
Our other favorite was Samuel’s Fortress, the capital of the first Bulgarian empire in the 10th C, at the very top of the hill on which Ohrid is built. We walked the ruins of the fortress wall, climbing the stairs, for a fantastic view, looking down on the archeological excavation within the walls, and out at the expanse of the valley below and the lake surrounding it.
To one side of the fortress, is a pine forest, pungent with the fresh smell of crushed needles. A path through the forest and along the cliff above the water took us to another 13th C. Church, Sveti Jovan at Kaneo. We then wound our way back along to the water to our airbnb.
