A Bit of Beer in Bitola

The second stop on our Macedonia Trip

We caught a bus for the 90 minute journey east from Ohrid to the city of Bitola.

The countries second largest city offers up several reasons for tourists to visit: ancient ruins, a National Park on it's doorstep and a pleasant centre full of churches, mosques and with a long pedestrianised cafe-lined street, Širok Sokak.

We kicked off with a bit of sightseeing, walking through the extensive park and down to the Roman ruins of Heraclea Lyncestis, where we were absolutely sweltering in the July sunshine.   
Back in the centre and just north of the small river we had a walk around the Old Bazaar.  
Here we stumbled across Bar - Čaršija (Титоввелешка 24) where we declared that it was certainly time for a refreshment break.

The quirky, welcoming Bar Carsija in Bitola

"We have many types of beer.  So, Skopsko or Zlaten Dab?"

The entry is through a covered archway, leading to a small courtyard and outside bar nestled amongst ancient buildings dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries.  The wooden-roofed section to the side has rickety bookshelves, beer posters and vinyl LPs nailed to the crossbeams.
It's a really atmospheric place and probably one of the nicest we found on our whole trip.
There were a few big-brand imports here (Tuborg seems strangely popular in these parts) but I ended up back on the Zlaten Dab.

Our next destination was Bourbon Street Pub (Leninova 17).  I should have guessed it was Bitola's Irish pub.  We stayed on a high table along the alleyway leading to the pub, so I didn't really explore the bar itself properly and see how much Irish paraphernalia they'd amassed. They did have a good selection on the beer list though, with a craft beer section.  I believe this came from Temov Brewery in the capital, so I skipped this, as I wanted to save that for when we got to Skopje.  Instead I picked a bottle from the local Bitola brewery, the 5% Bitolsko Piva.  

Green Army?  Whose Green Army?
Could this be a distant outpost of the Plymouth Argyle supporters club?

For our second day staying in Bitola we wanted to head out of the city a little and explore a bit of Pelister national park.  We caught a taxi to the village of Dihovo 5km away.  From this sleepy, charming village we followed a short trail up the river to a waterfall (spoilt only by the insistence of some visitors to leave all their rubbish behind).   We then followed a trail uphill towards the St Atanas monastery, giving us some elevated viewpoints back towards Bitola.  I'd love to have completed a much more extensive walk, but we hadn't packed the right gear for this trip and hadn't started early enough (uphill at 1pm in scorching sunshine had me sweating like a trooper and declaring myself as 'unfit').
But it was worth it to be in surroundings like this...

Returning to the village we called in at Villa Dihovo, entering with some trepidation as we weren't sure this was somewhere we could just stop for refreshments.  As it was we were given a warm welcome, sat under a parasol in the garden and served with great home-brewed beer.  The host here is Pece Kvetovski, an ex-professional football player, who offers accommodation, acts as a guide to the national park and has a passion for slow-cooked food with ingredients straight from the garden.  He's very keen to stop and have a chat and obviously proud of this wonderful spot.  As well as brewing the beer he also makes home-made wine and raika, although we didn't try these on this occasion.  The beer was a cloudy wheat beer and was of a good quality.  Pece modestly just calls it a hobby, but I wasn't kidding when I told him it tasted really good and was such a welcome break from Skopsko lager.

Pece's home brew at Villa Dihovo - apologies that I got a picture that doesn't do any justice whatsoever to the location and could, frankly, just be someones back garden in Dunstable.

We made a mistake on the way home, getting the taxi to drop us off at Connect Pub.  It's only once we'd got out that I realised we were on the edge of town and I'd been a bit misled by the marker on my tourist map.  Sorry, but there is no reason to head all the way out here if you're visiting Bitola, especially as Connect have another café/bar venue in the centre.  The Connect Pub was in a modern building with a large covered terrace in front of it.  There were 8 TV screens around the sides, which would be brilliant for watching football, but not so good when they're showing Gordon Ramsay on the Kichen24 channel, sound-tracked by Belinda Carlisle on the sound-system.  We drank a bottle of Skopsko.  Again. Then made the long, long walk back to the centre.

Bitola is a little off the beaten track for tourists compared to Ohrid, but it's a rewarding place to explore.  If I were to do it again I'd catch a taxi to the heart of the national park - although I'm glad we visited Dihovo and sampled Pece's home brew, which will be a beer-highlight of my trip.   Next up: Skopje.

The local supermarket ale selection.  Not a Punk IPA to be seen.