…and then, of course, there were the 10 days Steve and I spent on and around the shores of Lake Ohrid, from which a couple photos or more might still be shared…
Photos of the lovely rolling and mountainous paths around the village of Trpejca, where Steve and I spent such a lovely 10 days already three months ago, yikes how times flies…
Along the shore of Lake Ohrid lies this Bay of Bones museum, reconstructing a prehistoric village built over the water whose remains were found at the lake floor and some of which now sit in an on-land museum behind us as we look at the walkway / bridge across the water that takes us out to the immersive museum. Below more photos of the houses and views from the reconstructed village.
We’re back to Tsar Samuel’s Fortress, at the top of a lovely hill overlooking Ohrid City. The passage of time is evident in the nature of this building, and in the fact that it’s nearly two months since I first showed you this lovely location and well over a month since I returned to my regular work life in A’dam. The photos we showed in that prior post came from our first visit, when the fortress was closed. As you’ll see, on the day we could go in, the weather was a good deal moodier :-).
Here you’ve got it as vapor in the sky, solid on the ground and liquid down in the lake. Pretty amazing, H2O, really. And a correction: the whole mountain is Galicica. The peak behind me in the photo above is what’s called Magaro, a subset of Galicica. And in the gallery below, you’ll be seeing some of Lake Prespa as well as good ol’ Ohrid which we got to know better.
Only two ways to get to the Zahumska (or Zaum) monastery: by boat or foot over a fairly narrow footpath across steep terrain with stretches of lakeshore that are very narrow when the water is high – which it was when we talked the path two weeks ago, our first morning there.
Though it’s beautiful and peaceful, this bit of water is actually carrying quite a bit of water downhill, from Lake Prespa on the south side of Mt Magaro, over to Lake Ohrid on the north side of Mt Magaro, via natural underground springs or rivers which emerge above ground in the place where you see this lovely chapel, first photo in the galler below. The others photos are all of the short (one km?) canal – lake – river that connects from the chapel to Lake Ohrid itself.
In case you’re keeping track, what you’re seeing above is 2200-meter high Mt Magaro, in this case as seen from the northeast on a 1987-meter prominence that I hiked up to early last week. We showed you this mountain in our first post from Macedonia, nearly three weeks ago. Here, we show you more of the lovely mountainous terrain between and around Magaro, Lake Ohrid (top right corner here, with probably a bit of Albania visible in the distance) and Lake Prespa (top left corner here, with probably bits of both Albania and Greece showing up, since all three countries share Prespa), where Steve and I spent a glorious day exploring, last week.
(so much world, so little time....) 