Struga

Even booking the plane ticket was an educational experience. ‘You can fly to Skopje the capital’, explained my tour guide Lela,’or go straight to Salonika which is called Thessalonica, in Macedonia, which is really Greece’. Capiche? I certainly didn’t.

Although it is officially recognised as FYROM, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Athenian government still considers the region to be a part of Northern Greece. I still don’t get it. It’s all Macedonian to me.

Lake Ohrid is Macedonia 's equivalent of the Cornwall Riviera; a peaceful lakeside town with enough fresh salmon to make 5000 fishballs. It was mildly disturbing that our cab driver was called 'Slobodan', but he did manage to condense the four-hour airport shuttle into a 90 minutes.

We stayed in the town of Struga at the Hotel Drim. It is billed as a five-star hotel and ‘a paradise on earth’, and I don’t want to destroy any Macedonian dreams so I’ll stay silent. Ish. It’s not bad, and there is a private beach with great access to the lake that definitely increases the aesthetic enjoyment, assuming you can ignore the building’s distinctly post-communist tinge. Nevertheless, most of the rooms have recently been refurbished and the staff are good, so I’d definitely give it a good four stars.

Ohrid, pronounced ‘horrid’, is set at the foot of a stunning mountain range, with an impressive vista that stretches way into the distance. There is plenty to do throughout the town and it’s thoroughly satisfying wandering through the streets that were first built in the 7th century and wind their way up the steep incline.

Jews have lived in Macedonia since we were first kicked out of the Temple. The post-biblical historian Flavius Josephus talks about them, but he also contributes to the are-they-aren’t-they debate, referring both to the Greeks of Macedonia, the Macedonian Greeks and the Greek Macedonians. Let’s move on, already.

Either way, Macedonia hasn't always been good for the Jews and Maimonides recalled that it was the Greek- Macedonian dynasty who conquered Ancient-Judaea. Alexander just wasn’t that great for the Hebrews. It was his people who tried to destroy Judaism, but Judah the Maccabee saved the day and we're been celebrating Chanukah ever since. Goodbye, and thanks for all the doughnuts.

The local Jewish community had a difficult time in the last century, not least when the King of Bulgaria handed them over to the Nazis so that he could save the Bulgarian Jews. Their community currently numbers 200 which means that they rely heavily on connections with communities in the local Baltic states.

The centrepiece of any trip has to be a climb to Samoil’s Fortress, if only to appreciate the view over Lake Ohrid, which is one of the world’s oldest and deepest expanses of inland water.

The nearby Amphitheatre was built around the year 30 BCE and partially restored in 1984. It was after visit that I discovered the reason why the first 10 rows of the amphitheatre were pulled out towards the end of the Roman era; they wanted to convert the space so that it could accommodate gladiatorial contests. In other words, it was time to forget the art of ancient Greek theatre and replace it with an arena where people harm each other for the audience’s entertainment. Extreme? Hard to believe? Take a look at Channel Four’s habit of putting Big Brother on primetime TV and you’ll see history repeating itself. Come to think of it, if you could put Alexander the Great inside the BB house, then you’d have a show worth watching.