Things to do
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Ancient Theatre
Cut into the hillside in the Hellenistic period and later adapted by Romans for gladiatorial games, this stone semicircle sits among houses halfway up the slope, with the lake framed between the wings. Only the lower seating survives. Summer festival performances still fill it, which is the best way to see the place working.
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Bay of Bones
Reconstructed stilt village on the water at Gradište, built over the piles of a Bronze Age settlement found when divers mapped the bed of the bay. Thatched huts on a platform hold pottery, looms and hearths, and a small Roman fort stands on the hill above. It sits a short drive south of the town on the road to Sveti Naum.
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Church of St. John at Kaneo
Perched on a bluff over the water below the old town, this small Byzantine church of brick and stone is the image that sells the whole lake. The interior is tiny, with fragments of fresco, and the point of coming is the terrace and the drop to the boardwalk below. Late afternoon light hits the apse, and the path down leads to a swimming platform.
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Galičica National Park
Limestone ridge between Ohrid and Prespa, rising above both lakes and crossed by a road that climbs to a saddle with a view over the two of them at once. Bears, wolves and endemic plants live on the higher ground, and trails run to the Magaro summit. Snow closes the high road in winter, and early summer brings the flowers.
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Lake
Lake Ohrid
One of the oldest lakes on earth, held in a graben between two mountain ranges and shared with Albania, deep enough at its middle to stay cold through the summer. Endemic trout and snails survive here alone, which is why the water carries its own UNESCO listing. Boats cross to Sveti Naum from the harbour, and the shallow north shore warms early in the season.
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Monastery of Saint Naum
At the southern end of the lake beside the Albanian border, a domed monastery church stands over the tomb of a disciple of Cyril and Methodius, its walls dark with seventeenth century fresco. Peacocks wander the terrace and springs feed the wetland below, where rowing boats carry visitors through the reeds. Boats from Ohrid harbour make the crossing in about an hour and a half.
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Ohrid Old Bazaar
Between the harbour and the old quarter, lanes of filigree silver workshops, bakeries and small traders hold what is left of the merchant town, with the plane tree square at the centre. A workshop near the square still makes Ohrid paper by hand on a replica of an early printing press. Shops shut early outside the summer season.
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Samuel's Fortress
Ramparts above the old town mark the citadel of a tenth century tsar whose empire ran from here to the Adriatic, rebuilt in stone and now walkable along the walls. Views take in the lake, the roofs and the plain behind. The climb through the lanes is steep and the interior is largely empty, so an hour is enough.