Churches Galore

Last weekend, Beth came down to Struga for a weekend of local sightseeing. First, we hit up the cave churches in the villages of Radozda and Kalista. The cave church in Radozda is dedicated to Archangel Michael and dates back to the 13th century. The church is usually kept locked, so we had to go into the closest restaurant and ask for the key.







The inside of the cave church in Radozda.










Kalista has two cave churches. The church dedicated to the Holy Mother (Sveti Bogorodica) dates back to the 15th century is attached to a hotel (Comfort Inn and Monastery). It consists of a rickety staircase that joins a few creepy cave-rooms that have frescoes, altars and other orthodox-y things. (Sorry, no pictures yet.)

The other cave church, Sveti Atanas, is much less attached to a hotel. Beth and I had seen enough churches, so we decided not to seek the key to this one, and instead opted to take silly pictures.

The second cave church in Kalista... and me.

Next, we went to Sveti Naum, or as Beth kept calling it, Sweaty Naum. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, “Sveti” means “Saint.”) Here, there is yet another church/monastery attached to a hotel. Thankfully for these churched-out girls, Sweaty Naum also boasts a peacock colony, freshwater springs, a few beaches and beautiful vistas. And we were boasting wine, chips and salsa in our backpacks.

Apparently they breed the peacocks to match the paint jobs on the nearst car.

Funny story (that you may or may not find funny): We saw a little hut-church called Saint-something-other-than-Naum. Inside there were lots of traditional orthodox offerings, such as money, oil and knitwear (seriously). Outside of the hut-church, there was a little sign with an arrow indicating “Saint Water.” We followed the arrow, and it led to A FAUCET. And the faucet was surrounded by the same kinds of offerings as in the hut-church. At the time, we were in dire need of a bathroom, so we proceeded to look around for an arrow pointing to “Saint Toilet.” (We didn’t find it. A non-holy toilet sufficed, though.)