Countryside Tourism

The aroma of freshly baked bread, home made zelnik (special type of pie/pastry), fresh milk, honey, cheese, ayvar, pickled cabbage, roast pork or grilled lamb, chestnuts, shira (grape must, young wine) - all that combined with a hospitable and welcoming smile that makes you feel at home... Sounds like a typical Macedonian village!

Your exploration of the pulse of the country should undoubtedly start here.

Spend a weekend in the countryside and feel life as it used to be in the past: serene, simple and tranquil. Just for a moment forget about the city noise, sky-high bills, taxes... Get up at dawn when the first cock crows and announces the new day.

Take part in the daily rituals typical for the Macedonian village: milking, baking bread, making rakija (home-made distilled brandy), and traditional ayvar (dish made of red peppers, aubergine, sometimes tomatoes also, and spices) and turshija (pickled vegetables).

Houses in most of the villages are old and earthen, with small curtains, log fires, earthenware and dining tables with three-leg stools around them. The dinner table is called sofra and most often includes a vegetable pie baked under a vrshnik (a special oven-like structure shaped like a huge wok in the bottom part of which embers are placed and then covered with ahses. The food, laid on a dish, is placed on the ashes, then covered with the lid of the vrshnik and the whole vrshnik is placed on a clay hob that has been previously heated up. It operates as a kiln and the food cooked in it tastes deliciously) with kiselo mleko (a type of thick yoghurt).

There is a church or a mosque in every village and most of the homes have a small corner intended for praying. The church bell announces every new day, and if it is a holiday, people go to the service with bread and wine for welfare and light candles as a gift to God asking him to give them good health. Great feasts are celebrated in the centre of the village with traditional instruments (zurlas i.e. large pipes and drums) and folk dances. People are clad in folk costumes.

In every season of the year, the villages have their own rituals: in the summer time - it is picking cherries, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers, melons and watermelons; in the winter: preparing wine and making rakija (home-made distilled brandy). In the winter, housewives make pickled vegetables (tursija) and supplies for the long cold season; and in the spring when everything is budding, they dig, sow the seeds and prune the vines on the Day of Sveti Trifun (14^th of February) asking for health and welfare.

In the old days, families were large, with many children - sometimes over 10. Men used to work in the fileds and many of them immigrated to foreign countries seeking a better life. Women used to look after their homes and the children.

Entire families of around 50 members used to live together. Three generations used to spend the nights under the same roof, sometimes up to 20 in each room, on rugs and jambolijas (a type of woolen rug). With Go Macedonia you can participate in the old tradition of dying the jambolijas and weaving rugs that later decorate the homes of newly weds.

In the summer, the villagers used to spend their nights in the yards or on so-called chardaks (terraces), whereas in the winter they were at their homes, next to the fire place.

Our Countryside Tours

In the Bosom of Pelister If you are looking for a quite and calm weekend fulfilled with beautiful mountain landscapes, the village Magarevo in the National Park "Pelister" is an ideal choice click here >>