Bitola’s highlight was the great floor mosaics at Heraclea, a city founded by Philip of Macedon and named for the Greek hero Hercules
Sometimes we go to these off-the-beaten track places like Ohrid and hit a home run. We loved it. Then there’s Bitola, not exactly a strike out, but kind of a lazy fly ball.
Bitola is Macedonia’s second largest city, down in the southwestern part of the country and just a little north of the border with Greece. It was founded by Philip of Macedon in the 4th century BC and for many years was a key cultural, educational, and commercial hub. From the time of the Ottomans it was known as the “City of Consuls” as so many nations had consuls here. So it sounded interesting.
Bitola’s main pedestrian thoroughfare
More interesting than it was, it turns out. There was a lively street of outdoor cafes and that was fun but it was kind of limited. There were some ruins about a mile out of town that were worth an hour or so. Mostly the ruins were pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, but the mosaics, covered up for some 1,400 years, were pretty impressive. And I loved a bit of the history: the city was an important part of the Byzantine empire but was sacked by a rising threat to Byzantium, a guy named Theodoric. Ultimately Emperor Zeno convinced Theodoric to turn his attention to the remnants of the Western Roman Empire instead, which Theodoric proceeded to conquer in the late 5th century. As Rome in those days was something of a … how do you say it? Shit hole? … he made Ravenna his capital and developed the fantastic mosaics we fell in love with last summer.
More of the mosaics, in really remarkable condition
But for those ruins, though – and even they were at best a brief visit – there wasn’t a lot to see. So I did what I liked to do when there’s not a lot to do and climbed up a big hill out of the city to look down. And that’s it. From here we move into Bulgaria, a country we visited and loved back in 2010.
Looking down on Bitola from high atop a neighboring hill
That church up there was my goal and I took the rainbow as a good omen
Macedonia’s countryside, looking away from Bitola
Not all of Bitola was this run down, but it is obviously a poor city in a poor country. Traveling here helps me understand the frustration many Macedonians feel about all the money being spent to spruce up Skopje
Macedonia is primarily Christian, but it was founded as an explicitly multi-cultural country and you see many mosques as you travel around. I have to say that I love the towering minarets you see as you drive through the country.