San Giovanni a Kaneo: the Cliffside Church Above Lake Ohrid

There are places that seem designed for a postcard, and then there's San Giovanni a Kaneo, which becomes one without even trying. The church is small, built of stone and red brick, set on a rocky spur that juts out over Lake Ohrid. Below, the water shifts from turquoise to deep blue depending on how the light falls. All around, almost no one. And that is precisely the point.

Lake Ohrid is one of the oldest lakes in the world, and the town that gives it its name is a UNESCO site, yet it stays clear of the great tourist flows that choke the Croatian coast or the Greek islands a few hundred kilometres away. You reach Kaneo on foot, with a twenty-minute walk along the lakeshore starting from the centre of Ohrid, or by water in a small boat. The building is a restrained example of Balkan Byzantine architecture: no ostentation, just measured proportions and a setting that alone is worth the journey.

The advice is to go early in the morning or in the late afternoon, when the few visitors thin out and the fishing hamlet below returns to silence. From May to June and again in September the climate is mild and the lake warm enough for a swim beneath the church, without the crush of July and August, when regional holidaymakers arrive. Bring comfortable shoes for the path and little else: here you come to be, not to tick off a list.

Visiting Ohrid is also a small act of responsible tourism. Spending in a destination that needs it, eating in the taverns on the lake, sleeping in the houses of the old town: all of this helps a fragile local economy far more than your money does in an already saturated city. And in return you take home a silence that elsewhere, by now, comes at a very high price.

Getting there

The little church of San Giovanni a Kaneo stands in Ohrid, perched above the lake, and can be reached only on foot: from the old town you descend along the lakeshore and a scenic path leads to the rocky spur. To reach Ohrid, the relevant airport is the city's Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle, while by car the town is linked to the roads coming from Skopje, Bitola and Albania. As there is no railway, you get around by car or bus.