Ohrid, Macedonia - If you've never visited Ohrid, a town on a large lake of the same name in south-western Macedonia, chances are you've never even heard of it. If you have, chances are you will want to come back because there is too much to see in a single stay.
For history lovers - the town and the entire 50-kilometre Macedonian part of the coast - are dotted with medieval churches and monasteries, and prehistoric archaeological sites.
The town itself is where scholar St. Kliment established a literary school in the late 9th century to spread Christianity and the new Cyrillic script that has since become the foundation of the Christian Orthodox faith from Ohrid to Moscow.
Once there were 365 churches and monasteries in Ohrid and around it. Not all survived the test of time and centuries of Ottoman rule, but what remains is enough for days of viewing.
The two best known places are the St. Naum monastery, 30 kilometres south of Ohrid and the 15th century church of St. John the Theologian. The latter, nested on a cliff above the lake on the peninsula Kaneo within the town limits, is Macedonia's most photographed site.
Inside the old town, its narrow streets criss-crossing each other at impossible angles, there are centuries-old, well-restored churches - St. Sophia, St. Kliment, St. Pantelejmon, all with their partially-preserved original frescoes.
The typical entry fee to a church is 100 denars, or around 2.5 dollars, for which in some places there is a guide to tell the story. In others the visitor is left to himself.
Also in town, uncovered by chance and now fully exposed, is a 2nd century BC ancient Greek amphitheatre, with a dozen rows of seats in a semicircle more than 50 metres across. The theatre today is the site of concerts, plays and similar events.
Perched on top of the steep hill right at the geographical centre of the modern-day Ohrid is Samuil's Fortress, built in the mid-10th century at the highest point in town.
Scattered in the cliffs to the west, beyond the neighbouring town of Struga and toward the now open Albanian border, there is a handful of cave-churches, also centuries old. Because they are somewhat off the beaten path, some of the churches are almost Ohrid's little secret.
There is a lot for archaeology lovers, too. The shores of the lake were always inhabited since prehistoric times. Evidence is scattered virtually everywhere and archaeologists are digging in many places.
At the Panteleimon church, several layers of civilization dating back thousands of years are exposed to visitors. A few years ago, halfway between Ohrid and Naum, divers discovered 5,000-6,000 pillars that carried the foundation of an ancient settlement. Macedonian archaeologists in 2009 re-created the settlement with a dozen houses on stilted platforms in the so-called Bay of the Bones.
For those preferring nature, Ohrid is an ancient, high-altitude and very deep glacial lake surrounded by tall mountains and home to some 200 endemic species.
The most famous among them is the Ohrid trout (salmo laetnica), once the basis of a worldwide culinary sensation, but today a strictly protected species on the verge of extinction.
There are many opportunities for hiking and biking, though venturing into the mountains is not recommended without professional guides.
Those who do climb on top of Galicica will have a view over the entire Lake Ohrid and, 10 kilometres to the east, the equally large but shallower Lake Prespa. With Prespa at 750 metres above sea level, it is 150 metres higher than Ohrid.
The entire Ohrid area, with dozens of hotels and camps dotting the coast, is also a vacation target. The landlocked freshwater sea is the primary vacation destination for Macedonians, but also has an increasing number of visitors from the rest of Europe.
Ohrid has an international airport and is well-connected to the E-75 highway between Belgrade and Thessaloniki, either from Skopje or Negotine, which makes it a worthwhile pit stop for Western Europeans driving to Greece, with the detour being around 130 kilometres longer than the straight path.
