Lake Matka

Yesterday I went to Lake Matka, a lake about a half hour outside of Skopje, with some of my new colleagues/friends, J., B., and R. The lake is surrounded by mountains and there's a path that goes along the mountains. You can't really tell from the picture, but the sides of the mountain are pretty rocky and so is the path, so you have to be careful when you're walking.

There's a 14th century church at one side of the lake just before the path starts. Inside the walls are covered with frescoes, icons in the Byzantine style. It used to be part of a monastery.

Matka must be something of a tourist attraction because there seemed to be a higher concentration of non-Macedonians there than I've seen so far in Skopje. In fact, while we were walking, we met a Greek couple who asked me to take their picture. There was something wrong with their camera and I tried to help them, and I even managed to talk with them in Greek! I was surprised at how many words came back to me. Of course, the people I was with were suitably impressed, which was obviously the most important part of the exercise.

We kept walking along the path, but didn't go the whole way, since it's 14 km. Here is some more prettiness:

And here are some cute little kitties that were hanging around outside the church.