Streets squares and districts to visit Bitola

The old Ottoman quarter of the charchia or "Old Bazaar" (Стара Чаршија/Stara Čaršija) retains many shops, a market and a few cafés and restaurants. It's pleasant to stroll through this 12-hectare labyrinth of alleyways. Here you'll find the Hadji-Mahmut-Bey mosque, former Ottoman baths and the La Havra synagogue. Founded in the ^16th century, Bitola's charchia reached its apogee in the ^18th century. It was then much larger than it is today, attracting merchants from all over the Empire, as well as from Vienna, Venice and Marseille.

This 1 km-long pedestrian street (Широк Сокак) is Bitola's main thoroughfare. It links Dragor to the north and City Park to the south. Renamed in honor of Serbian King Peter ^I, then Marshal Tito during the Yugoslav period, it has taken on its Ottoman-era name, which blends Slavic širok ("wide") and Turkish sokak ("street"). It is bordered by around a hundred listed ^19th-century houses, numerous shops, cafés and restaurants, as well as several monuments. It is also home to six of the ten consulates still present in Bitola.

This 600^m2 square (Плоштад Магнолија/Ploštad Magnolija) features an 8.5 m-high equestrian statue of Philip II of Macedonia dating from 2011 and a fountain representing the "Vergina sun" found in the king's tomb in Greek Macedonia. The square owes its name to the Magnolija building constructed in the 1860s to house the Austro-Hungarian consulate. Located at no. 37 Širok-Sokak Street, it now houses the Russian Consulate and the Bure bar. Opposite, at no. 28, note the beautiful corbelled building from the same period.