These are the stories you can open in the 3D view, each at its own numbered point on the model.
1The citadel on the hill
This is the citadel of Ohrid, on the summit of the old-town hill, about 100 metres above the lake. Its walls enclose an irregular area of about 162 by 123 metres, some 12,400 square metres. Outside they stand 10 to 16 metres high; from inside, where the ground is higher, they look much lower. In antiquity the town on this hill was Lychnidos. The fortress carries the name of Tsar Samuel.
The main gate faces south, towards the town. Two half-round towers stand on either side of a recessed round arch, its edge ringed with brick. Mapping data gives the gate structure a height of about 14 metres. The towers and the merlons along the top were restored, and parts of the crown are new. Visitors still come in this way, and the ticket kiosk stands just inside the arch.
Long before Samuel, this hill carried the town of Lychnidos, a name probably meaning city of light. Excavations and the historian Polybius point to an earlier fortification here, attributed to Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BC, and Livy mentions the fortress in 209 BC. Digs since the year 2000 have found, among other things, a gold mask and a gold glove dated to the 5th century BC.
Most of the walls and towers you see are dated to the time of Tsar Samuel, at the end of the 10th and the start of the 11th century. Samuel ruled from about 976, or 997 by other counts, until 1014. Ohrid was his capital and the seat of his patriarchate from about 990 until the Byzantine conquest of 1018. A cross wall once split the citadel into the ruler's part and the soldiers' part.
After 1018 the Byzantine emperor Basil II had the walls pulled down. They were built up again later, among others under the Gropa family, local lords between 1371 and 1385. The Ottomans took Ohrid in 1395. The last local ruler to use the fortress was Dželadin Bey, who built a palace inside the citadel in 1808. Ottoman rule in Ohrid ended in November 1912.
After 1018: walls pulled down
Rebuilt: among others under the Gropa family (1371–1385)
Look along the battlements. The walls are rough limestone rubble laid in thick lime mortar. Much of the circuit was restored in 2003, and new merlons were added where none had survived, which is why the crest of the wall looks crisper and lighter than the old masonry below it. Stairs lead up from the inner ground to the wall-walk, and from the towers you can see over the whole town.
From here the old town drops to Lake Ohrid. The lake lies at about 695 metres above sea level and is up to 288 metres deep. Across the water to the south-east rises Galičica, the ridge between Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa, a national park since 1958, with its highest peak, Magaro, at 2,254 metres. The lake was listed by UNESCO in 1979, and the old town was added to it in 1980.
Lake: ~695 m above sea level, up to 288 m deep
Galičica: national park since 1958, Magaro 2,254 m
The citadel was only the top of a larger system. Town walls about three kilometres long ran down the hill to the shore on every side except the lake. They had three gates: the Upper Gate near Peribleptos and the theatre, the Front Gate near the church of Holy Mother of God Čelnica, and the Lower Gate near the shore. Only the Upper Gate survives whole; it stands below you, to the east.
