The capital of Macedonia, and home to too many statues & monuments.
Skopje tips:
Taxi drivers - We had a couple of cheap ones and a couple of more expensive rip offs. We were used to the honesty of Albanian's and got ripped taking a taxi from the train station to our AirBnB when we first arrived. When we got a taxi from our accommodation back to the train station, it was regular price 300 denar compared to 400 from the train station to our accommodation. Don't be afraid to bater.
The Skopje Project 2014, a controversial effort by the government to transform the capital into a visually appealing European city as they transform Communist buildings into something freaking grand which seemed unnecessary. Called Skopje 2014, it was supposed to be completed in 2014 yet it seems it will continue for sometime as they keep adding new monuments/statues to the list (not sure when enough will be enough for Skopje)... The project is a display of nationalism which fuels the hatred toward the Albanians and Greeks - according to our walking tour guide.
We did the stock standard walking tour when we arrived to Skopje. This tour was the longest at nearly 4 hours, but this included a stop at a traditional restaurant for a free lunch! The guide gave us some good information about the country and city, but he did carry on a lot about himself which dragged on a bit. What we loved about this tour was that it was the most social walking tour we've been on yet, we met a couple of Americans, a Belgium and a couple of Australians on this tour and we spent most of the 4 hours talking amongst ourselves - followed by heading to a brewery after for a beer and more chit chat.
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| The multi-million dollar statue of Alexandra The Great which dominates the centre of Macedonia square. Super impressive. |
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| The archaeological history museum. |
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| Porta Macedonia is a triumphal gate built as part of the Skopje 2014 project celebrating 20 years of Macedonian independence. It is colour stained due to some recent protesting against the government partially called the "colour revolution" where protesters paint Skopje 14 monuments with paint ball guns as an act to try and overthrow the current President Gjorgje Ivanov. Many allegations relating to corruption surround the current President and many locals believe the money spent on Skopje 2014 could be better used elsewhere. |
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| Plenty of construction happening in the background, they are currently building a big wheel like the London Eye.... |
Considering 33% of the country is still below the poverty line, they've spent something like 500 million euros to date on the statues and changing the face of the city from communist buildings.
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| This is a statue of Alexandra the Great (as a baby) with his mum. Usually a fountain but unfortunately during the autumn-winter months they switch off all the water fountains. |
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| Statues of random stuff.... no doubt this has some importance but we were often wondering what the relevance was in most cases because more often than not they didn't seem required. Our tour guide said if he was to explain each statue/monument the tour would be never ending. |
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| Macedonia street, the main pedestrian street and route to the city. It joins the old train station to Macedonia square. Plenty of shopping, cafe's and things to have a look at. |
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| An earthquake mostly flattened the city in 1963 at 5:17am (the railway station clock stopped at the time of the earthquake and hasn't been used since). The station was left semi-destroyed and is now a memorial and museum dedicated to displaying the disaster. |
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| Outside Istanbul, apparently Skopje was home to the largest bazaar throughout the Balkans back in the day. Its still pretty big and has plenty of Turkish feeling to it. |
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| First experience in a Mosque on our walking tour. We all had to remove our shoes and girls had to cover their hair before entering. |
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| Another capital, another fortification. |
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| Entrance into the Fortress. During some archaeological work something like 20 years ago this sign said "THE FORTRESS IS CLOSED FOR VISITORS" - still standing just with a slight modification. |
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| Looking over Vardar River running through the town and down to Macedonia Square, the stone bridge was built by the Ottomans and still sits on its original foundations. |
Matka Canyon
We had read plenty of reviews on Tripadvisor about "must not be missed" and "highlight of Skopje", so on a rainy day we decided to forge our way roughly 10km out of town on a metro bus to visit the Canyon, which is also home to the Cave Vrelo - the world's deepest underwater cave (exact depth is unknown but at least 500m deep).
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| Views looking back to Matka Canyon from our little walk up to a lookout. |
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| Walking up to a lookout and we came across a local bloke clearing trees under the power lines. By hand with a machete and his trusty steed. |
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| Walking up this little lookout, we managed to get a new mate in the form of a street dog. He stayed with us for the rest of the day, very loyal to say the least! |
The canyon has a couple of restaurant/bars but they are pretty pricey in Macedonian terms, the quality and service seemed pretty good. The views and surroundings of the restaurants are stunning - we enjoyed a cold beverage while we waited for some more tourists to go on a 30min boat ride up the river.
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| Plenty of kayaks to hire. |
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| A walk heading north of the restaurants takes you along the gorge. |
Unfortunately we didn't manage to fit in the boat ride up the river. We sort of got sick of waiting, we had an option to pay the total fare to hire the boat (required a min. of 4 people to head up the river), and the boat operators didn't want to budge on price so we packed her up and got the next bus back to Skopje. Overall it was well worth the visit.
That concludes our little visit to Macedonia. Next stop - Belgrade Serbia (10hrs on a bus).
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