Mavrovo: the mountains and the lake: the back story

About Mavrovo: the mountains and the lake: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Skopje Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

West of Skopje, the road climbs into Mavrovo National Park, the largest in North Macedonia. It is the country’s mountain playground: skiing in winter, hiking and lakeside calm in summer, and villages where old traditions live on.

The national park

Mavrovo National Park was founded in 1949 and covers more than 700 square kilometres of mountains, forests and gorges. Its peaks include Korab, the highest in the country at 2,764 metres, on the border with Albania. Bears, wolves and lynx live in its forests.

The lake and the drowned church

Lake Mavrovo was created in the 1950s by a dam. The village church of St Nicholas was partly submerged, and today its roofless shell stands in the water, or on dry land when the level falls in late summer, one of the most photographed sights in the country.

In dry summers, a church rises out of the lake.

Skiing

Above the lake, the Zare Lazarevski ski centre has runs between about 1,255 and 1,860 metres, with chairlifts and drag lifts. The season usually runs from December to March, and can start earlier and run later in good snow years. It is the most popular ski area in the country.

Bigorski and the carvers

In the Radika valley, the monastery of St John the Baptist, Bigorski, holds an iconostasis carved in the 1830s by the master carvers of the region, crowded with saints, animals and vines. It is one of the great works of Balkan woodcarving.

Galičnik

High in the mountains, the stone village of Galičnik is almost empty for most of the year, but every July it comes alive for the Galičnik Wedding, when a couple marries in traditional costume with music and dancing.

Our advice: come in winter to ski, or in summer to walk and swim. Stop at Bigorski Monastery and the Duf waterfall in the Radika valley, look for the drowned church, and drive up to Galičnik for the view. Two days is ideal.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Mavrovo: the mountains and the lake: the back story before you go.