This 7 km long sightseeing tour has about 120 m ascent and takes you along some interesting places in the south of Bitola. You can spend almost a whole day on this tour if you take your time to visit the archeological site Heraclea Lyncestis and the Bitola Zoo.
The walk starts at the Bitola Museum. The Museum of Bitola is located near the crossing of the famous pedestrian street “Shirok Sokak” and Partizanska road. There is free parking nearby at the flats along Partizanska road.
The museum building used to house an Ottoman military academy, which was attended by Mustafa Ataturk from 1896-1899 before he became commander-in-chief of the Turkish military and then the first president of Turkey. A wing of the museum is dedicated to Ataturk. Other parts of the museum show artefacts from archeological sites in the surroundings, the history of Bitola and Bitola’s partisan movement. Outside the Museum of Bitola you can find a tank and some other military material. We had visited the Museum of Bitola before so it was not part of our trip this time
There is a bakery at the start of the hike, we bought some pastry here for during the tour.
We walked the first part through the City Park of Bitola.
The first visit is to the two old airplanes, or what is left of them. These are two abandoned Yugoslavian F-86 fighter jets. They were originally stationed at the Bitola airbase, which was a major Macedonian air force base during the Cold War. The base was closed in 1999, and the jets were left abandoned. They are a reminder of Bitolas history as a military base, but their condition is poor and they have been vandalized.
Near the planes you will find several bunkers, you will need a flashlight to have a look inside. There were some bats in the bunkers. Also a warning: somewhere during the first part of this trip, I suspect in the bunkers, we were jumped by dozens of fleas. We only noticed this after a while but it took us hours to remove all of them from everywhere…On and under our clothes…the bites were terribly itchy!
Then we arrived at one of the main goals of this trip for me: the Bitola Fortress “Dzepane”. This fortress was built in 1876 as an Ottoman gun powder/ammunition depot. It consists of four separate buildings surrounded by a high wall. According to legend, the Dzepane was built by masons from the village Smilevo. When the Turkish governor offered them money for their work they refused and told him “that it is already paid for, and we do not take money for holy work”. Only later it became clear to the Ottoman governor that they had built the Dzepane in the shape of a Christian cross.
After the First World War the fortress was damaged but was later renovated. Meanwhile, it seems to be in need of another renovation.
The Dzepane unfortunately was completely closed when we visited, the entrance even was completely closed off with a brick wall. However, there are some holes in this brick wall which theoretically would make it very easy to climb over this wall and visit this interesting 19th century fortress. I am not saying that you should, but you could 😉.
The four buildings inside the walls are completely empty and seem to have been used as stables for cattle. One of the buildings contains an interesting mural. It is a pity that these historical buildings are not renovated and not in use anymore!
The next stop is the Heraclea Waterfall. It is not really clearly marked so keep an eye on the GPS location because it can be easily missed. I think it’s man-made and not very spectacular. But a good place for a lunch break and to catch some more fleas of each-other ☹. A bit further there is another waterfall that we did not bother to visit.
Then the highlight of the tour can be visited: The archeological site Heraclea Lyncestis (click on the link for more info). We did not visit this time because we already had visited Heraclea twice before.
Instead we visited the Bitola Zoo. The back entrance was open and we could enter the site for free. Also the main entrance was open without anybody selling tickets. In case the back entrance is closed, you will have to walk around the zoo to the main entrance.
The Bitola Zoo was not in the best condition but we have seen worse. There was a young monkey that could easily escape from its cage and jumped on my girlfriends head. Maybe looking for fleas, who knows? The monkey also stole a plastic water bottle from our backpack. Be warned for this sweet little villain!
After spending quite some time in the zoo we walked back to the Museum of Bitola.
See here to view and download the GPS track of this sightseeing walk: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/bitola-sightseeing-airplanes-bunkers-dzepane-fortress-waterfall-heraclea-lyncestis-and-zoo-189307412
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