A visit to Macedonia's second city
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Bitola,
Macedonia
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
For a little change of pace, I've spent the day out from Ohrid at Macedonia's second city, Bitola. The place has quite a long history, dating back to Greek times at the site of Heraclea (the ruins of which still sit outside of town), and it became somewhat of a boomtown in the 19th century, before diminishing in importance after the Balkan Wars and then being heavily damaged in World War I. Today it's a pleasant, if unexceptional place, with a fair few streets of beautiful 19th and early 20th century architecture, disturbed here and there by some truly tasteless 1960s behemoths. The north side of town is distinctly more Turkish in character, looked over by several mosques and centered around an old, yet still very much active bazaar. The suburbs and the industrial areas around the bus and train stations are considerably less attractive, but that seems to come with the territory, ex-Yugoslavia and all.
I originally had it in mind to spend one night here, but decided it was just as easy (and likely preferable) to daytrip it from Ohrid. In fact, it was the right decision to make, as I can't imagine what I would do in town beyond little more than an afternoon. While it's not a bad place, per se - some parts are quite attractive and well worth exploring - Bitola feels like a place whose heyday is long gone. There just isn't a whole lot happening around here. I spent most of the day taking in the grand old facades (and a few shocking eyesores) along ulica Marsal Tito, peeking into the local mosques and winding through the small streets of the bazaar. My lunch of pizza and a shopska salad was quite tasty, and the weather, if pretty toasty still, was clear and pretty close to ideal for sightseeing. There was even a new local tourist office with friendly staff handing out free town maps that let me use their toilet sans charge (a rarity in this part of Europe . . . or wait, Europe in general!). So it was an enjoyable day overall.
I got a bit cramped for time at the end. When departing Ohrid, I purchased a roundtrip ticket, which meant that my return trip had to be with the same bus company (there are two). The only appropriate return bus was at 4pm, which left me with basically no time to visit Heraclea Lyncestis. I did, however, go ahead and make the trek out there just to have a peek. Most of the site was actually visible from outside the entrance and frankly, they were just another batch of ruins for all I could see. It's hard to get excited about fairly run-of-the-mill remnants of antiquity after you've been to Rome, Pompeii and Athens. Arles or Nimes maybe, but Bitola comes up short in that regard. What had me even more convinced it was a waste though was the ridiculous admission arrangement: 100MKD for entry, but 500MKD for a camera (eh?) and 1000MKD for a video recorder. You've got to be joking! A small site of ruins sporting a few intact mosaics and you're asking $10-20 from people that want to record the experience? Hah! In light of that, I was doubly unmoved about having missed the site.
I'm not terribly overwhelmed so far with Macedonia at the moment, even if Ohrid is admittedly very pretty. I guess my expectations were higher. The scenery here is quite splendid in parts, but then I've had great scenery ever since Trieste (central Croatia and parts of northern Albania notwithstanding). For some reason I thought the cities would have a been more interesting and tangible history about. Even Ohrid, apart from its excellent churches, is not exactly a treasure trove of traditional Macedonian architecture. Of course, I haven't seen that much of the country yet, but reports about Skopje don't sound all that promising. I guess I'll find out soon enough. For the moment though, Macedonia is nice enough, but it certainly doesn't bowl me over.
