Skopje, Macedonia

 1/2/2025

I decided to kick off February with a bit of a solo adventure. Today I travelled to Skopje, the capital city of North Macedonia. I took the coach at 8:30 am and the journey took about 2 hours. Obviously we had to cross the border, which took a little while as I was on a coach with about 20 other people. To speed up the process we filled in a sheet beforehand with our name and passport number, it was just a piece of paper on a clipboard getting passed back person to person, which felt like something from a school trip. At the border we all had to get out and show our passports anyway. It was a relatively nice drive, got to see some of the mountains, Skopje is right in the north so it was only about 30 minutes after we crossed the border that we arrived. 

I had to walk about another 30 minutes to get to my hotel. I was staying in the old bazaar, the 12th century section of the city. This was really nice and it did have an old vibe to it, just with quite a lot of touristy shops. It was old cobbled lanes lined with coffee shops and restaurants, which I was a big fan of. I arrived at my hotel, dropped my bags and went straight out. It was a very nice day so I sat out in one of lanes at a coffee shop with the sun beaming down on me. I only had euros so luckily the guy took it and gave me the change in denar, which would set me up for the day. 

After a little stroll around the old bazaar, I walked towards the centre and the Macedonia square to get some lunch. I walked over the famous 'stone bridge' to get to the square, which takes you over the Vardar river. On the bridge I saw a guy with a sign saying, "travelling the world by taking photos", he had a old print camera and I had no photos of myself so I thought why not. I had a bit of a chat with him, he was from Turkey and assumed I was too, a lot of people have made that mistake in Skopje. Got my photo and it came out pretty well, so was happy with that. I then got lunch in the Macedonia square, which has a huge statue of Alexander the Great in it. There are so many statues around the city, probably too many, it looks slightly tacky. They are made to look like historic monuments but people told me they are all new and just made to look like that.

I then went to visit the Mother Teresa museum, which was not far away and quite small. I didn't know that she was born in Skopje, so I discovered that, it was a nice little museum and a very cool looking building, with a glass chapel at the top. 

After this I took a stroll through a market and back to the river, then went to the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle for Independence. It was a political museum mostly talking about the uprising against the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th, early 20th century. It had loads of wax figures in which was slightly weird I thought, but it was quite well presented. 

I trekked up to the 6th century fortress after this and took a stroll around it. It is mostly just the outer wall that remains, but there is a path that means you can walk around quite a lot of it and go up the lookout towers. It was a very good panoramic view of the city. I left and went further up the hill to find a nice bar with decking overlooking the city and mountains. I was quite tired from walking so stopped to get a beer and watch the sunset. It wasn't the best sunset as the clouds had come overhead.

I went back to the hotel and had a little rest before going out for dinner. I found a restaurant nearby and got a nice grill. To finish the evening I went for a drink at one of the local bars in the old bazaar, just round the corner from my hotel, and watched a live band. It was heavy metal, which is not normally my cup of tea, but they were actually quite good. Played just English music, of course.

Sunday

The next day I got up and left my hotel, and went for breakfast and a coffee at one of the local cafes. It wasn't such a nice day but still nice enough to sit outside and enjoy the vibe. I then went in the other direction from yesterday and found the big flea market. It was huge, I almost got lost a couple of times, going from inside to outside, it was like a maze. After looking around for a while, I went to the mosque nearby just to have a look, there were a lot of beautiful mosques in the city and the call for prayer was quite special. 

I was leaving at 3pm so came back to the centre for some lunch before heading off. I had a bit of time to kill so thought I'd take the long way around to the part of the city I hadn't seen. I had no data on my phone so was winging it back to the bus station. This was a bad idea and got a bit lost, I knew the station was on a main road and I'd gone a bit far. I managed to find my way back to the main road but it didn't look right. Before I went too far I decided to stop and ask someone, however, as it was a long main road there weren't many people walking. The first 2 people I asked didn't speak any English and couldn't work it out with them, luckily some guys pulled up near me and I went to ask, they spoke English and told me it was right around the corner. So I made my bus thanks to them. 

Crossing the border back was a bit mental. There was an absolutely massive line of cars waiting the get into Kosovo, so we all groaned a little bit, but when we got to the back of the line the driver swerved into the other lane and skipped past the whole thing. Not without causing mayhem squeezing past cars coming into Kosovo and getting beeped at left, right and centre. In fairness to the driver I think one of the lanes was meant for buses but cars had taken it up, was still a bit crazy though. Anyway I got back to Pristina safely, just in time to watch Arsenal beat Man City 5-1, which was a perfect end to a great weekend.