North Macedonia - 12 day round trip (Part 1)

in May 23 we flew to Skopje, rented a car and made a 12 day round trip through North Macedonia. a beautiful country, you can see mountains from wherever you are and wherever you look. we enjoyed a mix of beautiful scenery, ancient sites and old monasteries and churches, and everyday life.
this is part 1, covering Tetovo, Mavrovo National Park, and Ohrid. part 2 will follow soon.
our itinerary:
Day 1: arrived Skopje airport, took car, drove to Mavrovo National Park. on the way spent some hours in Tetovo
Day 2: short morning walk in Rostushe to Duf waterfall, long afternoon walk from Jance to Galicnik
Day 3: drove from Mavrovo to Ohrid. on the way visited monastery Sv. Jovan Bigorski and village of Lazaropole, took road along Black Drin. evening walk in Ohrid.
Day 4: sightseeing in Ohrid (Kaneo, Sv. Jovan, Samuel's fortress, Sv. Sofia, Biljana river)
Day 5: day trip along Lake Ohrid to Sv. Naum monastery, boat trip to springs of Black Drim, across mountain road to Lake Prespa and back to Ohrid
Day 6: drove from Ohrid to Prilep. on the way stayed some hours in Bitola visiting the town centre and ancient site of Heraklea Lyncestis
Day 7: in Prilep walked up to Marko's castle ruins, walked around centre, attended Orthodox service at Sv. Blagobestenije.
Day 8: drove from Prilep to Demir Kapija. first visited beautifully located Treskavec monastery near Prilep as well as small Pece Atanasovski folklore museum in Dolneni. in Demir Kapija evening walk along the river Vardar.
Day 9: in the morning took a walk in the nearby Valley of the Cactus (they were in bloom end of May) and in the afternoon longer walk to the warm pools of Dosnica river (near Chiflik), nice but not warm yet.
Day 10: drove from Demir Kapija to Kratovo. on our way visited ancient site of Stobi. in Kratovo took interesting 2 hour guided tour by our host.
Day 11: drove from Kratovo to Skopje. on the way had a stop at the Stone Dolls of Kuklica, then returned the car at the airport. went into Skopje by bus, met some Kosovarian friends who had come over from Prishtina, walked around Turkish quarter.
Day 12: day trip by city bus to Match Canyon, where we had a long walk and a boat trip afterwards.
Day 13: back to airport and leaving North Macedonia after a very beautiful and interesting holiday.

License-free music:
(1) Tupelo train - Chris Haugen
(2) Birds in flight - Dan Lebowitz
(3) Felicity - Scott Buckley
(4) Keep moving on - Reed Mathis


(1), (2) License: YouTube Audio Library
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
(3) www.scottbuckley.com.au
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
(4) This work contains Music Track Reed Mathis - Keep moving on that is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Author: Reed Mathis

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