Brodec - Crn Kamen and Przhar peak

See https://mymacedoniablog.wordpress.com/ for more info about sightseeing and hiking in Macedonia

NOTE: the last part of this hike was very overgrown, starting from the point where you leave the asphalt on the way back to the start. It may be better to follow the asphalt road downhill until the point where you cross the trail again. This probably adds about 1 km to the hike but maybe even faster than fighting your way through dense vegetation.

This hike is about 12.5 km in length and has 830 m ascending. It starts at a large stopping place along the road near the village Brodec (Brodets), with ample parking space. Brodec is about 40 minutes driving from Skopje.

In case you take the road via the settlement Radisani, make sure to visit the Churches dedicated to St Nikola and St George in Radisani (see https://mymacedoniablog.wordpress.com/)

In all the years that we have visited Skopje, we have never hiked on this mountain range, the Skopska Crna Gora (Black Mountain). Because of the concentration of Byzantine and post Byzantine churches in this region, it’s also called Holy Mountain of Skopje. Remarkably, we also missed many of these churches during our previous visits to the Skopje region. Several of these churches are described in the booklet “Byzantine Heritage of Skopje” by Vasilka Dimitrovsha (2019, https://haemus.org.mk/).

There’s a fountain and an information panel about the hiking trails in the area at the start.

You have to pay some attention in the beginning of the hike to make sure you get on the right trail, onto the dirt road above the house. If you pass the house itself, you’re on the wrong trail.

After a while you cross the asphalt road, and continue following the more or less obvious trail. About 800 m after you crossed the asphalt road, the route leaves the official well-marked trail and from there on it’s freestyle climbing uphill without a clear trail.

You’ll have great views all the way up to the Crn Kamen (Black Stone) peak (1585 m).

Next you’ll climb a smaller peak, with some trenches on the top that may be from the first world war, it’s just my guess. From there you continue climbing until you reach the Pzhar peak (1626 m).

From there on it’s rather freestyle downhill again until you reach a dirt road. Once you’re on the asphalt road, you’ll pass two springs. You have the option to follow the GPS track that we followed, which leaves the asphalt road again after less than 2 km. But retrospectively that track was so overgrown that following the asphalt road (which usually does not have my preference) would have been better.

We only noticed the Church of St Ilija in Brodec when we passed it by car on our way back and did not stop for it.

We wanted to visit the Monastery of St Bogorodica along the road between Brodec and Kuchevishte, but unfortunately the gate was closed. Since it’s in the middle of nowhere, there was nobody to ask for the key. If you intend to visit the Monastery of St Bogorodica, maybe ask around in Brodets or Kuchevishte.

On our way back to Skopje we visited the Church of St Bogorodica, nowadays known as St Spas, from the 14th century the village Kuchevishte, but also this church was closed. We asked around in the village for the person with the key, but he was not available.

Our last stop before Skopje was the St Archangels Monastery from 1631 near the village Kuchevishte, dedicated to Archangels Michael and Gabriel. At least this monastery was open! But to our unpleasant surprise, the place is run by an evil nun who closed the church in front of our eyes, because she would not allow a foreigner in the church. We later heard from a local that the nun is an alcoholic who drives through the town on her tractor, sometimes so drunk that she can hardly stand. A sad story, but it made us miss some really cool frescoes according to the above mentioned booklet from haemus.org.

The first part of this hike was absolutely great with nice views and would get 4 stars. The overgrown last few kilometers would not get more than 3 stars, so an average this hike was 3.5 stars.