This hike of 17 km with 920 m height difference starts at the Monastery of St Archangels Michael and Gabriel near the village Kuchevishte, at the foot of the Skopska Crna Gora (Black Mountain) mountain range. The monastery is located about 23 km by car from the center of Skopje.
The start of this hike at the Monastery of St Archangels is located 3 km north of the village Kuchevisthe. Note that the church of St Bogorodica in Kuchevishte itself (nowadays known as St Spas) dates back to 1330 and is certainly worth a visit as well. In fact, the whole Skopska Crna Gora region is referred to as “Skopje’s Holy Mountain” due to the many old churches. The booklet “Byzantine Heritage of Skopje” by Vasilka Dimitrovsha (2019, https://haemus.org.mk/) describes several of these churches in more detail.
There is a large parking below the monastery of St Archangels Michael and Gabriel. The monastery dates back to 1631. We tried to visit the monastery church in 2021 as well, but were denied access by an evil nun who did not want to let a foreigner (me) in the church. We later found out that this nun had an alcohol problem. Luckily, during my visit in 2022, I was not bothered by anybody when I visited the church!
From the parking you soon reach the small church of St Petka. There seems to be a holy water spring in the church, with an outlet outside the church as well.
After about an hour (3.5 km) the 4×4 road becomes a beautiful small forest trail. A bit further there’s a small waterfall.
Not far from the waterfall I spotted a fire salamander, black with bright yellow spots. Note that these beauties are quite toxic and can shoot their toxin from glands on their head. Especially contact of the toxin with eyes is supposed to be very painful. I only found this out after searching online what animal this was. Luckily it did not spray me when I took the pictures!
The pleasant and rather cool and moist forest trail continues to follow a little river. There is a spring and shortly after the spring you leave the forest for a welcome change of scenery.
Good views, albeit a bit foggy, from the top/ridge for about 3 km.
The trail down is a bit overgrown at some places and at a certain moment I deviated from my planned route which I had composed by combining parts of several other GPS tracks that I had found online, because these parts seemed to be too overgrown or off-trail. I think the route that I took now is very well do-able.
This was a very pleasant hike with diverse views and an old monastery. The spotting of the spotted Fire Salamander really made my day. This hike gets 4 out of 5 stars.
You can view and download the GPS track of this hike here: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/kuchevishte-monastery-st-archangels-michael-and-gabriel-117303059
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