Cafe culture

We spent the day exploring Bitola, which has a long history as being a main trading point between east and west.
We wandered through the busy Shirok Socak - a pedestrianised street lined with shops and cafes. A lovely place to stop for a drink and watch the world go back. The old bazaar area is a maze of streets, no longer a market but still fascinating to wander through. And then to the covered market full of fruit and vegetables - why don’t we have this at home?? MrKT loves a market so we ended up with bags full of goodies from aubergines to olives and peanuts. Let’s hope there’s a meal in there.
Our last stop was to peak in the House of the Army, built in 1912 and the base for the officers of various armies of the balkans. Today is has a concert hall and photo exhibition. We were greeted by the manager who gave us the history of the building and then his view on politics and advice for the UK - we nodded politely. He introduced us to a photographer who had just finished putting away his exhibition from the latest Manaki Film Festival. He and his father have been photographers at the festival since it started 40 years ago. He shared his enthusiasm with us and kindly showed us his exhibition boards with images of famous film directors o we the decades who had been part of the festival. He was clearly still buzzing from the event himself.
And finally he left us to look round the photo exhibition of the Manaki brothers who captured images of life in Macedonia in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He also left us with the gift of 4 tickets for the opening concert of the Classical music festival which starts tomorrow.