A country not often popping up on this blog is that of North Macedonia, as it is currently officially called. Through the years, there has been the odd reference here and there, but nothing more detailed. And that is now about to change.
Sascha has been out and about and in some coming posts he'll share his experiences.
Even though North Macedonia is not very well known for its soaking qualities, this smallish (but mountainous) country racks up 10 mentions in the Wikipedia List of Hot springs page. Unclear of course, whether or not we are talking about wild hot springs. Or just the health sanatoriums.
My own list mentions 4, while Travelmacedonia notes (Feb. 13, 2021) 5 Thermal spa centers. There's a question on Tripadvisor forums from 3 years back, specifically concerning the more wilder soaks, but answers not always clear.
There's a scholarly reference to six "geothermal zones", though by no means is it clear how this adds up to potential soaks.
The figure below is from another scientific reference; with the red squares denoting geothermal projects. Again not concluding there is anything soakable.
Finally, Fromrusttoroadtrip have blog entries on two Macedonian hot springs.
Over now to Sascha.
Cracks
Covid-19 does not stop a serious hot springer to explore the natural hot springs in Europe. In February, I traveled to North Macedonia, one of the few destinations in Europe that at that time were easy to travel. The Northern Macedonian capital's Skopje Airport has a lot of Wizz Air connections, cheap and direct flights are easy to obtain.The living costs are quite low (rental car for 1 week cost me 70€, roughly the same for a night's stay in the Hilton Hotel of Skopje).The little town of Katlanovo is not far from Skopje, just roughly 30 minutes by car. There’s even a bus that goes from Skopje.
Wikipedia notes that nearly 20 years ago Katlanovo did not even count 800 inhabitants.
In fact, it is more a kind of renovated sanatorium with some houses around.
Travel2macedonia has some more information:
'The Katlanovo thermal spa is situated 20 km to away from Skopje, on the Skopje-Veles (E-75) road, in the Katlanovo village. The favorable influence of the waters of this spa-resort was recognized for the first time by the Romans, as testified by the remainders of constructions from Roman times found in the area of the spa-resort: obviously the ancient population of this area, also used to exploit the waters. In the immediate vicinity of the spa-resort there are numerous springs with hot and cold mineral waters. Each of them is characterized by a completely different chemical composition, temperature and quantity of water. The water in the hottest spring is 500C high, and is used for therapeutic purposes.Near the spa-resort, there are long cracks which reach 350 m and from where hot steam and hot water emerge. There are sulfur, alkali-coal and cold earth-alkali acid waters....The waters of Katlanovo spa are believed to be curative of many rheumatic diseases, neurological and orthopedic diseases, chronic diseases of the digestive organs, of kidneys and of the urinary tract, diabetes in mild forms, as well as chronic gyneacological diseases'.
Sascha continues:
On the internet, it was written that also a hotel exists, but I could not find one.
But the spa resort does have a website, even though it's not too clear on what's on offer. It even has a Facebook page.
But I'm looking for the natural sources.The staff in the sanatorium were not particular friendly and told me that they honestly did not know where the natural hot springs are located.Well, nothing easier than that. Just park the car on the parking place, go to the sanatorium and take the path up the hill and follow the pipeline. After 200m the path goes further up and separates from the pipeline. Continue around 200m and you will get to the warm pool.I forgot my thermometer, but I estimate the temperature to around 36-38°C. The bottom is muddy and some algae are around. However, the view in the pool is wonderful (see photo at lead of this entry), in particular in winter when the snow covers the mountains in the surroundings. Another advantage to go there in winter, is that the snow covers all the garbage that visitors left.Fifty meters behind the pool is a cave with the hot spring inside.Here the water is warmer, I guess 39°C, perfect to stay for long time inside. In fact, it is a natural cave with a man made concrete entrance to create a kind of steam sauna.I was there on 2 different days and I was never alone. On the second day, people had to wait to get into the cave. Without masks, of course.
NtheSSIS has visited some hot springs both in Greek Macedonia as well as in North Macedonia. There's an entry on Katlanovo (Jul. 12, 2013), though it doesn't add to the above.
Thdk has an experience (2016) of the spa itself:
'Katlanovo is not so well known for tourists, but Macedonians know the place very well. When you enter the building is looks more like a hospital than a spa resort. Luckily, very quickly an English speaking girl showed us where we could take a bath in the natural spring water. We opted for the two person version. With some imagination this bath looks indeed close to the western spa'.
Rusttoroadtrip has made a youtube film from winter last year.
Finally a good pointer is to how to get to the springs by voyage.en.van:
Hi, thanks so much for referencing us in this post, however we have gone to great lengths to keep the location of this soaking spot secret for the sake of the elderly locals who make the difficult journey to bathe here, and as such it would be very much appreciated if you could remove the exact location so it's not so easy to find. By broadcasting these spots across the internet we end up overpopularising them to the point it changes the natural resource altogether and can impact negatively on local people, or even prospective bathers (just look at places like Saturnia for example). I hope you understand!
ReplyDeleteApologies for the wait in answer, I was ruminating on a correct answer.
ReplyDeleteLet me start off with saying that both our blogs seek to celebrate the few publicly free soaking spots left on our continent. And seek better safeguards from further degradation, be it from current visitors or future visitors.
We're not alone in this. The global Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in masses seeking out natural pastimes, which in itself is very positive. Unfortunately nature itself, managers of nature and the way these masses uncontrollably seek their solace are not positive at all. Not only better accessible hot springs are being overrun, forests, lakes, waterfalls, virtually anything that has some natural highlight is been trampled on. Clearly there's not enough nature around us. And the future certainly doesn't bode any better. From nature's standpoint, the sooner everybody gets back to what they were doing before, the better. Also note that us humans are not making it easy for our planet: every new soul wants a piece or it; there's simply not enough to go around, so it seems.
Since 2020 I have decided to write my blogs with what was just mentioned in mind: some new writings have been tagged on to past postings (you want info, you have to drag through all the posts to find it), little reference as to experiencing new ones and when sharing new photos, places are omitted. The map overview has gone.
Now to the above. I have re-read this, there's little more clearer other than reporting it's existence. Sascha's description can only be interpreted once there (and even then I suspect it is confusing) and the instagram pointers are only seeable by clicking further. I compare these with your own youtube entry and to me it's much more clearer from your video rather than from above, but maybe that's my biases. And I understand that highlighting hot springs is part of your revenue model, which is perfectly fine; Japan has many of these, which are both popular and should show us the way ahead. But we are not there yet.
Am I missing action? This blog entry adds up a constant roughly 200 views/ month with most of the visitors from the US. With this in mind I can hardly see that this is leading to a notable increase of visitors. And certainly not now. But maybe that's just my opinion.
Most of the visitors to the this blog entry are steered here by google, but as I am also very much in the US (and global) hot spring scene (metaphorically; it's all social media) I experience that the masses seeking their soaking solace are very fickle. And extremely poorly informed. And lazy. Somebody posts a question today, gets 50 answers. And tomorrow somebody posts exactly the same question. I also note that blogs are not very popular, Facebook is better, but an influencer posting on instagram is the captain of the direction of these masses.
Those that use google to inform themselves are usually more highly motivated. And from my experience very much attuned to hot springs conservancy.
If your understanding of the link between above and a marked increase in current visitors (which I'm oblivious to) is different (given what I just explained), then I might redirect a word or two.
I trust that nothing close to your example of Saturnia is on the cards. You'll probably note how on this blog I also use Saturnia as an example of how we should not experience our beloved free hot springs. But that being said, if you look at instagram shots of Saturnia from the last few days, even there a good experience can be had.
So I also hope you understand. Safe (and save!) soaking.