Skopje – Macedonia 3/7/16 – 6/7/16

If your someone who doesn’t like flying, or has plenty of time on your hands or that you love land travel, then I fully recommend the bus journey from Bulgaria to Skopje Macedonia. It’s around a 4 hour journey, with a half hour stop in the middle. Our bus (mini van) departed at 7am prompt so we couldn’t really see the views early on as the morning mist was still around. However 30 minutes in the views were spectacular. Travelling through the mountains in the morning sunshine, no clouds in the sky and with green fields everywhere it was stunning. Every so often we passed through local villages and townships ever popular with an array of red terracotta tiled roofs, stunning white buildings and the most amazing flowers. We passed acres upon acres of fields growing sunflowers all bursting into flower, their yellow petals could be seen from miles away. It really was a pleasant journey. And as far as the boarder crossings go, this too was carefree and quick. We approach the Bulgarian boarder and the officer came onto the bus, collected our passports and after 5 minutes she returned them. Then the bus drove round the corner, where a man from the Macedonian boarder control office came and collected our passports again. Within 5 minutes he returned them back to us and we were on our way. A very civilized way of doing this, no queues, no stress and no crowds. The journey was so pleasant that the time passed very quickly and before long we were disembarking in Skopje bus station. A trip to the ATM, to get some Macedonian Denar, (again a simple process), and we were in the taxi heading for our hotel. We are staying at the Anya apartments in the centre of Skopje City square. These apartments are scattered in a number of buildings around the square. Ours races the river and the museum, although not quite an apartment, as we had booked a double room. It’s right in the middle of everything, tourists sites, ruins, bars and nightlife – it’s brill. 4 nights for the equivalent of NZ $100.
As the whole city centre is pedestrianized, our taxi dropped us off 200m from our destination, and we were very pleased with what we saw. It’s very clean, tidy and cosmopolitan – Sunday lunchtime so not many folk around, but the Macedonians love their statues, we counted 8 in the 2 minute walk to our digs.
Our view is spectacular, many many old buildings towering above the tree lined Avenue that runs alongside the city’s river. We can even see an old fortress and can’t wait to find out about that and right in front of us is a wooden “tall ship” with masts, sails and flags adorning it. I think the best view we’ve had on our trip so far.
A walk around the inner city later that day, and we wondered into the Old Bazar area. What a sight, street after cobbled street, all lined with pretty buildings over hanging the roads. Most of which were only 2 stories high, but very impressive. We also walked through the city square. Not sure why it’s called square, as it’s round, with many brass statues within it. In its centre is a huge brass statue in the middle of a massive water fountain of Alexandre the Great. Very impressive and as we passed it later, when the sun had gone down, it was adorned with a multitude of flashing coloured lights all with water appearing from nowhere set to classical music, playing from every corner of the “square” totally amazing, beautiful and stunning.
The following day we decided to go on the FREE city walking tour which lasted 3 hours. Again this was brilliant, our guide Miko was very informative, although if he cut down his speel the tour would only last 2 hours. We visited buildings dating back to the 5th century, we learnt about the “stone bridge”, and why there are so many brass statues in the city. One thing that was a complete surprise to us both was that Mother Theresa was born in Skopje and didn’t leave unil she was 18 years old when she got her first calling of God. The whole town celebrates this as they have a museum dedicated to her as well as there are gold markings on the now main street, where the house she grew up in used to be. Another factor we learnt is that Skopje has been rebuilt 3 times over the last 15 centuries or so, as there has been 3 huge earthquakes each distorting the whole city with the last in 1963. At one point we were stopped by 2 men who asked questions about our view of Skopje. It took us a moment to see but one of them had a huge TV camera on his shoulder, (w were being interviewed by the Macedonian Travel Show!!! How cool. A very interesting tour indeed and an absolute must do.
On this walking tour we passed several travel agents and couldn’t believe what the cards in their windows were offering. Therefore later that day we went out and explored the travel agents. An hour or so later we left having booked a last minute self catering 9 night 1 bedroomed apartment in Halkidiki in Greece, leaving in 2 days time. Bus transfer included (which is only 4 hours away from our current location), all for €129 per person. That’s NZ $200 or GB £105 what a score. Greece wasn’t on our Europe tour initially, but at this price it’s too good to miss. We will arrive back in Skopje on 15 July and who knows where to from there.
On our last day we went wondering and came across an Irish Bar. One that we had been searching for since we got here. However a right turn from the door to our digs and 100m down the street was the Irish bar, so full Irish breakfast and coffee was ordered, lovely.
After our Greek trip to Polycrono we arrived back at our original digs in Skopje, and stayed for an additional 2 nights. These apartments are really nice, well located for the city centre and very cheap. We have been told by all the locals we’ve met no trip to Macedonia is ever complete without heading southwards to Lake Orhid. So we’ve booked the return bus journey and an apartment for 3 nights on the edge of the lake.