This 5 km long trail with about 200 m ascent takes you from the road to the village Dolno Orashje to the Orashje Fortress, or Orashko Kale in Macedonian. It is also referred to as the town of Sobri or Sobri Fortress.
I believe the remains of this fortress are relatively unknown, which is a pity because there are some quite well preserved parts of the fortress.
According to Wikipedia the fortress was used since late antiquity (300-600 AD), likely to defend important roads and iron and silver mines in the area. Finds in the fortress are ceramics, several coins from the 4th-6th centuries and many pieces of small objects forged from iron or cast from bronze and silver.
In the Middle Ages the fortress underwent several renovations. The southern front of the acropolis is preserved today at a height of 9-11 meters. This is the most impressive part of the ruins.
In the north part of the site these is another less well preserved tower.
The almost 1 h drive from Skopje to Dolno Orashje was a pleasure by itself, with some nice views and partly along an old railroad, which was possibly used for the mining activities.
We parked the car along the road to Dolno Orashje and hiked the unpaved road up to the fortress, approaching it initially from the north side. The walk up to the fortress and back was also interesting due to the nice environment and views. The main remnants are the towers on the North and South parts of the site. In the west there were clear remains of a wall as well.
We walked back to the car via another trail. Unfortunately there is a large illegal garbage dump along the unpaved road where people just dumped their rubbish from the cliffs.
Although this was just a short hike, it gets 4 stars out of 5 because it was a nice little adventure to explore this unknown ancient fortress.
You can view and download the GPS track of this hike here: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/orashje-fortress-234854404
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