Balkan Discovery Trip. Day 8: Ohrid & Tetovo, North Macedonia

While in Ohrid, we made an excursion to the boundary of the village of Ljubaništa, about 18 km to the south of the city. We had the chanced to visit the Monastery of Saint Naum and the Black Drim Spring.

Before entering the monastery area, we walked through a greenery park along the pristine surroundings of nearby National Park of Galičica. The freshen air in that early morning creates an 'eureka' moment of the ways we should enjoy our life to the fullest as we slithered on the edge of crystal-clear Lake Ohrid.

We were so tempted to go for a boat ride as we go deeper into the park, but we have been told that it was part of the monastery tour. (story on the lake cruise come later in this post) We don't have to fork out our own expenses! After passing through a beautiful bridge that separated the Ohrid Lake and the Black Drim Spring, we reached main entrance of the ancient monastery. The monastery was established in the Bulgarian Empire in 905[4] by St Naum of Ohrid himself. St Naum is also buried in the church. Source: Wikipedia.

Viewed for the hotel's room

The main gate to the monastery

Green and blue

Where is the Titanic?

Panoramic Shot

If got more time, we surely will spend the day here

We rode the boat after visited the monastery

And then we got into the monastery, as we plummeted toward the ground, scenes and images of the old buildings in front of our eyes.

We were then brought to the edge of the natural spring water, Black Drim. Not like its name, with its glassy surface and spectrum of colors, we were able to see through the base.

Anak angkat baru

Ohrid was one of our fascinating and historic city that we have visited in Balkan. We headed back to north and joined the city tour led by Mr Ahmed, a funny old man. The tour started when we walked along the Dimitar Vlahov street toward the Ali Pasha Mosque. We continued deep into the old bazaar street to stop at the Church of Saint Sophia, Since it was a short tour, we just passed through the Paper Museum and Robev Family House, which I think worth to visit.

After spent almost 2 hours, we started to feel hungry since we didn't try out any local dessert as I'm not doing any prior search. We had lunch at Biljana's Spring Restaurant before headed to next city, Tetovo. However, we only visited Sarena Mosque, also known as Painted Mosque, is a mosque located near the Pena River. Then, the journey continued to Skopje city. As it was already late evening, we checked-in to Hotel Gold and had dinner served at their restaurant.