Gorna Belica is a tiny village high in the mountains northwest of Lake Ohrid. It is close to the Vevchani springs. However, to get to Gorna Belica by car you’ll have to take the asphalted road via Vishni.
Gorna Belica celebrates two festivals in honor of both its patron saints, St Petka on August 8 and St Clement on August 9. These festivals apparently start very early, when we arrived at the Church of St Clement on August 9 around 11.00 am, the festival was already over.
The Church of St Petka is located in the village Gorna Belica itself, and the Church of St Clement is about 30 minutes walking outside the village.
According to the information panel that we encountered while walking from Gorna Belica to the Church of St Clement, this 8 km “Via Ignatia” trail takes you along:
– Gorna Belica (1450 m)
– Jankov Kamen (1200 m, a picnic place with benches)
– Vajtos (ancient Roman stopping place, near or along the ancient Roman road Via Egnatia or Crni Drim road)
– St Clement (1260 m)
The Via Egnatia was an important Roman road, that connected e.g. Ohrid (Lychnidos) with Bitola (Heraclea Lyncestis). You can see a part of the Via Egnatia near the village Radozda. It seems unlikely that the Via Egnatia indeed passed Gorna Belica, since Gorna Belica is not on the route from Radozda-Struga-Ohrid. I did a very long hike of 35 km from Gorna Belica all the way to Radozda.
We only walked a small part of this trail from Gorna Belica to St Clement in 2007, so I do not know how well the rest of this trail is marked. On another occasion we have tried to find the ruins of Vajtos, allegedly an ancient Roman stopping place. However, the description in the Bradt Travel Guide Macedonia on how to reach Vajtos was not very clear and we could not find it. It is likely that at the time of writing (2018) the signposts for this Via Egnatia trail are not readable or present anymore. In 2021 I did another attempt and found the site of Vajtos and parts of an old paved road.
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