Wednesday 29 June. Day 13: On Lake Ohrid to St Naum

June 29, 2016

Today we started with a fairly stodgy breakfast of local foods, but not freshly prepared which may have been the problem.

Cheesy corn bread and a layered cold pancake thing called Gjomleze

Our plan for the day was to catch the ferry across the lake to the Monastery of St Naum, which is the ‘must see’ attraction on the lake. We took our passports, hoping for the chance to spend a couple of hours in Albania as part of the trip!

After having a coffee in one of the many cafes lining the shore, we joined one of the ferry companies that daily make and out and back trips to St Naum. Unfortunately, you buy a ticket that includes both direction of travel with the one company, meaning that your time at the Monastery is proscribed to be whatever that company makes it – it’s the best part of the day by the time it takes about 90mins each way in the boat.

The ferry was quite full and we enjoyed watching the people (including 1 other Australian couple); the locals who needed to be drinking from a 1.5L plastic bottle of Skopske beer at 10.30am in the morning; the Macedonian language tour guide at great pains to point out which part of the lake shore was Albania not Macedonia; and most importantly the views of the water, surrounding hills and towns around the lake.

It was lovely. Karst cliffs, deep blue water, Tito’s dacha, tiny beaches only accessible by boat, little caves, old Yugoslav era multi-story hotels, and little holiday towns, some of which were so pretty and cosmopolitan, they looked like they could have been hugging the coast line of Italy.

When we got to St Naum it was a bit of a disappointment. Tourist central with restaurants and bars, a street of souvenir sellers in a row of identical little shop fronts, a beach and people sunbathing.

The Monastery itself was pretty, with a traditional in style (although newly built) inn, monks quarters and an attractive little church.

There were swift nests everywhere - particulary under the eves of church buildings and balconies of high rise apartment buildings

The signs became more and more over the top and hysterical.

Warrning!!!! Peacocks of almost certain death!!! Mind you we did see people doing stupid things to try and get the peacocks closer to their cameras...

The church was originally built in hte early 10th C. but had been destroyed by the Ottomans. It was rebuilt in the same place in the 16th C. with further additions made in the 17th and 18th C. The brickwork looks a bit like a patchwork as a consequence.

After walking around for a bit, photographing the peacocks, inspecting the frescoes and icons in the church, and checking out the chapel with the tomb of St Naum, we tried to find a way across the border to Albania – which was only a kilometre away… we had a vision of maybe walking the couple of kms along the road to the next town for lunch? However we were foiled by the lack of an open border crossing accessible by foot near the Monastery. We would have needed to walk quite a bit further to the main road. So instead we settled for one of the restaurants in the monastery complex and had passable kolbasi (sausages) and raznici pork (grilled pork fillets on skewers) with chips. After lunch we wandered, had an ice-cream and watch the people sunbathing and swimming in the sun. Although very odd and not what I expected, the atmosphere at St Naum was very pleasant and it was a relaxing way to spend a day.

At one of the ferry stops on the way back to Ohrid.

Dinner that night was at a restaurant near the old plane tree, Star Chinar, next to the stage where the folk dancing had been the night before. We ate fantastic sarma (cabbage rolls) and stuffed peppers. The place is not on Tripadvisor and had excellent food and normal prices… unfortunately though there was no folk dancing tonight!! Instead we saw a Swedish marching band getting organised and heading off towards the waterfront. We got some takeaway cakes from an excellent baklava shop and headed back to the room to pack up and get organised to head off again in the morning.

Grilled zuccini and our stuffed cabbage rolls and peppers

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