M-Photo | Field Notes

Skopje is over the top. Looks like Las Vegas in its grandeur.  The 1963 earthquake demolished over 80% of the city. Almost all of the neoclassical building were gone and replaced by plain communistic style architecture. The 2014 plan was to rebuild the city center.  The statues are enormous and many of the people think that the money spent to rebuild in this grandiose style should have been used elsewhere.  One argument is that by rebuilding the city center will bring in more tourism dollars.  Camera: Fuji XT20 We visited the small Mother Theresa Museum which contained a small chapel on the second floor.  This the same location of the chapel she used to attend services. The site of her childhood home contains a plaque, it was destroyed in the 1963 earthquake. While we were walking in the square we were accompanied by a dog, then another, then another until we had a rather large pack of nine dogs escorting us through the city.  ...

We took a boat on Ohrid Lake to the Bay of Bones Museum.  The bones that were found were that of animals, not humans.  It is believed that the Neolithic people cremated their dead.  The people built their village on the lake, most likely due to the bears and wolves on the shore.  The village was constructed on top of large tree truck pillars embedded in the lake bottom.  The wood did not deteriorate in the fresh water as it would in sea water so some of the stumps still remain.  The site we visited was a reconstruction of what a typical village would look like.  We had the whole place to ourselves! Camera: FujiXT20

We have had rain and it was on the chilly side (and windy) in Ohrid.  It is a small picturesque town on the banks of Lake Ohrid.  Our guide arranged a boat ride across the fresh water lake to the Kaneo Church on a cliff.  Fantastic spot and iconic. We walked from the church on the narrow cobblestone streets through town and back to our hotel on the shore of the lake and ventured out on several exploratory walks. Not a lot of Americans come to Macedonia for vacation, primarily folks from Israel.  Camera: Fuji TX20 A little bit about Byzantine Churches. The churches contain an alter but it is out of view of the congregation.  Frescos were painted inside the entire interior from floor to ceiling, mainly because the people of the time were illiterate and the pictures told the Bible stories.  On the left side of the alter are icons of the saint who the church is named after and Mary with the baby Jesus.  On the right side are icons...