Introducing Ohrid

The highlight of any trip to Macedonia, Ohrid is a place of dramatic beauty, steeped in history and culture. The crystalline waters of the lake and plentiful budget accommodation make it a magnet for summer holidaymakers, turning this sleepy little place, with its evocative cobbled laneways peppered with picturesque churches, into a vibrant party town.

For Orthodox Macedonians it is the spiritual heart of their country and a focus of nationalistic pride. It was here that Sts Clement and Naum in the 9th century founded the first Slavic university. Later Ohrid was the capital of the 10th-century kingdom of Tsar Samoil, with its bishop an independent Patriarch. The revival of the archbishopric of Ohrid in 1958, and its independence from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1967, were important steps on the road to modern nationhood.

However its history goes back much further than that. The tectonic lake itself is one of the oldest in the world and at 294m is the deepest in the Balkans. The area has been settled for 8000 years, while the town was first mentioned under the Greek name Lychnidos, before being conquered by the Ancient Macedonians in the 4th century BC. Under the Romans it became a stopping point on the Via Egnatia, which ran from present-day Albania’s port of Durrës to Istanbul in Turkey.

The lake’s mountainous fringes include the Galičica National Park, on the way to the marvellous monastery of Sveti Naum, 29km south towards the Albanian border.