Initially, I wanted to see Bitola, and perhaps the monastery near Debar when I planned my six-night stay at Ohrid. Well, the public transportation options in Macedonia turning out to be far worse than imagined, combined with the extreme heatwave that made even a short walk unbearable meant that I adjusted my previous plans to be humbler when I arrived in the region. One notable change was to turn a trip to Debar and its monastery into a much shorter one, one that entails me visiting Struga and Kalishta. This turned out to be an excellent decision. Read on to find out why!
Struga, to put it bluntly, is the opposite of St. Naum Monastery in two important ways. First of all, it is found on the opposite end of the lake. More importantly, however, instead of feeding the lake, the river you see here is created by the Lake Ohrid itself. This is where the lake flows out of, forming the Black Drin River.
This river is the backbone of the city. There are beautiful walkways on both sides, and a ton of cafes and restaurants to enjoy the view. Furthermore, to my surprise, there are also a lot of entry points into the river, which is pretty deep at this point. Some teenagers were even using the bridges that cross the river as jumping pads, which did look quite enjoyable.
What is not so much fun, however, is the current near the point where the lake flows into the river. While it is an exceptional sight to behold, you are not allowed to swim anywhere near it.
Thankfully, there are cafes with superb views on the side of this point which allows you to enjoy the sights without risking drowning in any way.
Although the water here looks a bit serene, I must add that once you do enter it, which I did a few days later, you will immediately feel the currents tugging you underneath this thin layer of peacefulness.
While the city and its denizens were friendlier than thought, I eventually had to start making my way towards the Monastery of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Kalishta, which is accessible through a five kilometres long walkway from the city center of Struga. I had an uneventful and beautiful walk along a particularly relaxing coast of the lake. While I was told that I could see some snake skins laying around, yet all I could see was those dried up leaves at the time.
When I arrived at Kalishta, I assumed I would see some locals. However, other than the already rare campers, I saw practically no one. It was about to be noon, so perhaps the people were either still sleeping, or were busy preparing lunch, but either way, it was a bit bizarre. This did allow me to take a lot of photographs around this tiny town, which had its fair share of old tractors and rusty boats laying around people’s front yards.
Eventually, I arrived at the monastery itself. This is not a particularly old monastery, but it works as a gateway to two spectacular and much older cave churches. Unfortunately, there was no one present to let us into the cave church found on the site of the monastery. I practically sneaked in there, with a Serbian diplomat and his son on my side, and thus we had to enjoy it in pure darkness. It was a sight to see, but there was no way of me photographing it. I feared not, as there would be a second cave church down the road that I was looking forward to seeing.
After you pass through the main monastery, you will be greeted with an aqua park and a hotel. Certainly not the cave church. You will then ask people how to get to that other cave church, and they will tell you to just go straight. And that is exactly what you should do. Follow along the small trail, pass through the hotel’s beach, and eventually, on your right, you will see the Saint Atanasius Cave Church. It is located a few meters above ground, so you will scale a few stairs to reach it.
Either due to its location, or its humble size, this particular cave church seems to be seldom visited. I found some rusty cans laying around, as well as a few coins which looked particularly old. The Orthodox imagery you will find here, though limited, is quite vibrant. It was sad to see that some were vandalized at some point in time, but many stood still against the test of time.
After getting your fill of Orthodox art, you will eventually need to leave the church, and perhaps even go back to Struga. Well, to my knowledge, you can only really backtrack to get back to Struga from over here. I wanted to find an alternative route, but most were without any real views, and were often meant for cars only. However, on my way back, I realized that I missed some decent angles of the spots I visited before, so it was not a complete waste of time walking the same route back.
Also, as I filled my water bottle in a cemetery, I came across this amazing scene during my walk back to Struga. What you see is no ordinary tomb. It is a tomb with what one can only assume as the favourite things of the deceased. Other than some flowers, likely for the lady, you have the cigarette facing the mouth of the now long-gone Jordan Tanaskoski. It is details like this that make me stick to walking as much as I can during my trips.
While I was done with my trip at this point, I did not want to go back to Ohrid just yet. I wanted to eat something different and enjoy the scenery. I was surprised to see a restaurant named after Taj Mahal in this sleepy Macedonian town, owned by who appeared to be some ethnic Albanians, and served only Italian food. I wanted to know the story behind it all, alas there were some linguistic barriers to communication. They had an interesting pasta option, that was also named Taj Mahal. To my surprise, gherkins and olives, combined with corn, worked pretty well as a pasta sauce. I suppose it was really the base tomato sauce that carried it all on its back, but still, it went great with some Macedonian beer.
On the topic of restaurants, I must add yet another, and much better place to dine in Struga. If you visit this fine city, you must eat at Castello. I came back to this town with my mother a couple of days later, both to swim a bit, and to start celebrating her birthday with a proper lunch. We opted for their house wine as our drink, and it tasted amazing to say the least. It was also just a few USD for half a litre, which is a bargain anywhere around the world.
They seem to serve their pizzas with their tomato sauce on the side, which came before the pizza itself. It was a nice touch, because despite having a lovely crust, at least for my taste buds, the pizza lacked enough tomato sauce on top. More on that later though. The pickled peppers on the other hand were also quite delightful. They were certainly spicy, but not so much so that most people could not eat them.
The reason why we came here in the first place was this dish right here, which I assumed was just a deconstructed pizza. I was wrong. This is baked cheese, a seemingly local dish that comes with fresh and thus extremely crunchy bread, topped with sesame seeds. In a way, these tasted like Turkish bagels. Anyways, the dish, or should I say the dip, had a ton of mozzarella and feta cheese, as well as some tomato sauce to bring it all together. It was spectacular, in every possible way. Imagine dunking these crunchy bagel sticks into a steamy and cheesy concoction that looked and smelled almost as good as it tasted. This is reason enough to come to Castello, and thus to Struga in my book. There are a few varieties of this as well, and some even come packed with meat if that is your thing.
Assuming that the baked cheese would not be enough for us both, we also went for a large pizza. This was a mistake. We ended up rolling back to our apartment in Ohrid because of all the food we had to shove down our faces. I mean, they all tasted fine, with the pizza being the only weak link that needed the extra tomato sauce, but there is something as too much of a good thing. After having a tiny food coma, we were thankfully back on our feet to have yet another birthday feast that night back in Ohrid.
Struga may not be as famous as Ohrid, but frankly, it offers a ton on its own and I did wish that we divided our stay in the region in between these two cities. Struga offers some decent beaches, a lot of eateries, and the locals are a delight. Prices seemed a bit cheaper, and the nature was at times even more beautiful than in Ohrid. If you have the time, visit this gem of a town, if you have more time, make sure to spend a few nights here as well. If you really have the time, it sure would not hurt to visit the nearby Kalishta as well. Those cave churches are something to see, and the walk along the lake is anything but boring.