"This music crept by me upon the waters"

““This music crept by me upon the waters”
and along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street”

— T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Ohrid was not necessarily a place I should ever have made my way to. I tend to gravitate towards the swirling metropolitan chaos of capital cities when visiting new countries. On this trip, however, it was this lake-side jewel that spurred the whole thing. I saw a picture of St. John the Theologian in the snow – half frosted gingerbread house, half orthodox chapel – and I was sold.

In truth, it shouldn’t have been a surprising destination as Ohrid (Lake, town, environs) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site – the source of my only example of checklist travel. Ecclesiastical Byzantine architecture is among my favorite styles, and it is truly reflected and amplified in the town.

My one great disappointment was that St. Sophia (funny how I kept running into her) was closed, so I missed out on any number of frescos, but all in all had a delightful time exploring the churches.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen as many stray cats as I did there.

It bordered nearly on the ridiculous.

Some posed, some ran… I even bore witness to an impromptu feeding from some local boys, carrying a grocery bag of tiny fried fish.

Never ones to be outdone, the town’s stray dogs seemed to make a point to catch my eye.

At the end of the day, the greatest delight was the lake itself, the bejeweled backdrop to every photo and every vista alike. I’d love to find my way back in the summer to soak up the sun and have more people around for eating and drinking and dancing – all things I found quite excellent in Macedonia, particularly given that it was the crisp frigid early winter.

Éblouissante sous le soleil couchant.

“Au bout d’un cap, une ville apparaît, dont la ligne, droite, éblouissante sous le soleil couchant, semble courir sur l’eau”

— Guy de Maupassant, La Vie errante

(At the end of a cape, a town appears, whose line, straight, blinding under the setting sun, seems to run upon the water. )

This quote is from a passage in La Vie errante – Maupassant’s travelogue whence I stole the name of this site – about Hammamet, which may well be my favorite town in North Africa. But that’s another story for another time.

Because this is a story about Macedonia.

And it’s not even a proper story, at that. Just a few photos of the most astonishing, brilliant, sparkling sunset I’ve ever been privileged to behold. The vivid rich colors dashed across the sky and painted the waters of Lake Ohrid like something out of a dream.

If I hadn’t already loved Ohrid, I would have been sold at that moment, but as it was the sunset was the perfect bow on a perfect day. One of life’s simple and perpetual pleasures that no mere photograph can do justice to, but I tried.