This hike of 26 km with 960 m ascent starts at the central square in Banjane where the bus stops. I parked the car on the square but was asked by an arriving bus driver to move my car a bit and then it was OK. So I’m not sure if it is appreciated by the buses if you park here! The good news is that the start of the hike can be reached by bus, in case you don’t have a car.
Banjane is about 17 km north from the center of Skopje, at the foot of the Skopska Crna Gora (Black Mountain) mountain range.
Most of the climbing is done during the first 5 km, which consequently are quite demanding.
On your way to the Monastery of St Bogorodica there’s a small shrine dedicated to St Rusa Sreda (St Blond Wednesday).
After about 2.5 km you can visit the Monastery of St Bogorodica. Everything was closed and besides a few cute kittens there was not much to see.
You get to a mountain bike trail that you leave again after 500 m to join it again 1 km later. Then you keep following the mountain bike trail. The views are good from this ridge.
At the highest point, the GPS track that I was following left the 4×4 track freestyle downhill to the right, to join a path through the valley back to the start. However, this part was pretty overgrown with ferns and I could not find the right path. Retrospectively, looking back at Google Earth, it seems I was only a few meters away from the right path.
However, after some fruitless attempts (which have been deleted from my GPS track) I decided to try to follow another road that was indicated on OpenStreetMap. So I climbed back up to the 4×4 road and followed the road indicated on OpenStreetMap.
At a large crossing of 4×4 roads I left the obvious 4×4 road for the slightly overgrown remains of an older 4×4 road. Although a bit overgrown, this turned out to be an attractive trail that was not on the map.
Finally I ended up again at the original GPS track that I had been following (marked with the waypoint “crossing”).
A bit later there were some crosses next to the road indicating the direction to “St Jovan” but I did not look for this church.
Next, you arrive at the nice Monastery of St Ilija. The monastery church dates back to the 14th century. It seems to have quite some space for lodging but I don’t know if this is actually possible. When I arrived, there were locals drinking beer in the garden. The fountain was used to keep the beer cool! There were many, many cats as well. Which also explains the sign at the entrance saying “Be decently dressed, forbidden for dogs, and forbidden to play ball”.
The trail along a small river back to Banjane was quite pleasant.
Overall, this was a good hike. It gets 3.5 stars out of 5 and not higher, mainly because of the high amount of 4×4 roads which are usually less attractive.
You can view and download the GPS track of this hike here: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/banjane-monasteries-st-bogorodica-and-st-ilija-117386416
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