Skopje to Stobi to Ohrid, North Macedonia

Sad to leave the majestic capital city of Skopje, but excited for the continued adventure, we packed up from the Marriott Skopje hotel after breakfast and got on the road to Stobi. Our plan for the day entailed a lot of driving, or at least our bus driver Dragan and his Dragon doing most of the driving.

Stobi is the natural stopping point between Skopje and Ohrid, North Macedonia, contains an old Greek settlement, and also includes a robust wine region.

Our first stop were the ruins in Stobi, which was part of ancient Greek Kingdom of Paeonia Macedonian, and eventually was absorbed by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC. During Roman times Stobi was the capital of the Roman province Macedonia Salutaris, and therefore was under Diocletian rule (who we learned about in Split). As the Roman Empire began falling apart, this reach of the kingdom was pillaged by the Visigoths, aligned to the Eastern Roman Empire, and it was then rebuilt. And then in 518 AD it was damaged by and earthquake, and then further invasions destroyed its economy and infrastructure to the point where it couldn’t recover, so in ruins it stayed. What is left of it today is from the 4th/5th century AD.

Since it was a very hot day with no breeze, and since we have seen many Greek and Romans before and quite frankly they start to blur together, we were less interested in the Stobi ruins. We were able to breeze through it pretty quickly – the highlights being the mosaic tile still in place in the main palace area. The preservation effort has been admirable and the ruins are in good condition, where you can visualize what they once were. Our tour guide for this segment was one of the preservation specialists who worked for the site, and walked us through the denser area where we saw homes, workshops, baths, courts, religious buildings, game room, a prison, and an amphitheater. I enjoyed reading this Atlas Obscura article in preparing the research for this blog after having seen it in person. There was even the ruins of a Jewish synagogue on the site, attesting to the Jewish presence regionally and in Stobi.

We especially enjoyed the surprising flora and fauna we saw along the way – never expected to see snails hanging from shrub!

After touring the ancient site of Stobi, we continued to a nearby winery, Stobi Winery, for a tour of the facilities and lunch. The winery was a thriving operation, with top of the line facilities and equipment, like I had seen in Napa Valley when I toured Scott Walker’s vineyard as part of a Thunderbird Winterim.

As you can see, the Stobi Winery’s brand is the peacock, which were learned about regionally during Alexander the Great’s rule and conquering of parts of Northwest India. From there, peacocks became a central motif to Greek culture and was often associated with the goddess Hera.

After the tour we stepped into the lovely and luxury dining hall for lunch, where a feast was served. It often felt like on the days on the road we moved from one huge meal to the next. The Stobi Winery had very memorable wine as well!

After Stobi we were back on the road for the next 3 hours to Ohrid through scenic countryside. As we started to approach Lake Ohrid, Nida told us a little bit about it – that it’s a tourist and vacation resort town (6th largest city in North Macedonia) but still pretty undiscovered, and that we would enjoy it. She said that for a lot of Gate 1 guests, it was a highlight of the trip. Additionally, the City of Ohrid and Lake Ohrid were accepted as a UNESCO Cultural and Natural World Heritage Site and Ohrid is one of only a few dozen UNESCO sites that are Cultural as well as Natural. We were definitely intrigued and had no preconceptions!

The bus approached our hotel, the Unique Resort & Spa, which was a brand new build Nida said. Since we approached from the east, we were unable to see the lake on our approach, and neither could you directly from the hotel as it was just tucked back. We got up to our room which offered a side view of some buildings and trees facing the mountain. The hotel was new, clean, huge rooms, but somewhat sterile. And, the trend of hotels not providing lotion continued here. We did sleep very quietly and comfortably in the massive king sized bed though!

That night, we met the Gate 1 group for dinner after we did some walking by the light. It was spectacular and really quite memorable, the same was walking into the Skopje square had felt. I won’t spoil the next write up here, but Ohrid turned out to be one of our favorite places on the trip as Nida predicted. Where Stobi and the journey from Skopje was just a wee bit underwhelming, Ohrid was overwhelming in natural beauty and charm, and definitely had the Yacht Life vibe going, but low ley.

Dinner was really lovely at the lakeside Tino Restaurant (part of the Tino Hotel), where we sat at a table with Nida and Dragan and got to learn more about his ambitions to own a fleet of buses and better support his family. In the first picture, you can see the restaurant in the background here behind the pergola, and you can see our Aussie friend Jeff in the foreground. And in the second you can see the glorious apple pie with ice cream we devoured for dessert.

But the real dessert was for the eyes, and it came for us after dinner, on our walk around Lake Ohrid.