Skopje, Macedonia - The City of Statues

Saturday June 2 - Day 8 of Intrepid Trip

Another beautiful and sunny day awaited us when we opened our eyes this morning. After breakfast we collected in the lobby and loaded into 3 taxis to take us to the bus station. It seems that taxis, airports, train stations, and bus terminals, are places of deception in so many countries. And no less so in Macedonia. A lesson: if you demand the meter be on and ask for a receipt, you will pay about 50% less than if you accept that the meter doesn’t work and the driver has nothing to write a receipt on!!

We took the public bus to Skopje – about a 3 ½ hour journey with 2 or 3 stops. The beautiful sunny day disintegrated and we experienced some light rain at various spots on the journey. Nothing like the storms that England has experienced though!

We drove through the beautiful, lushly vegetated mountains of Macedonia marveling at the 30C temperatures in the valleys and the snow-capped mountains around us. We drove for a few kilometers along a large scar across the side of the mountain – ugly slate quarries. Then bridge parapets appeared above us, and we are wondering if in fact they are making a new highway. Roads are reasonable, well kept and marked, double laned, tarmacked, and protected by rusted out guardrails.

Passed through one little town with tons of beautiful new, big, homes, many of which had Venetian blinds pulled tightly over the windows. Odd?? We passed a graveyard where all the grave stones were identical and appeared to be made out of a silver metal – stainless steel?? - and looked like a small column. I can't find anything on Google about that!

And in a flash, it seemed, we arrived in the large capital city of Skopje. We are staying at the City 5 Hotel. From the outside, it looked just like a regular apartment block in the boring Communist rectangle style. However once up on the 4^th floor, which is actually the 5^th floor, we exited the elevator into the tiny loby/reception/kitchen/dining/meeting area. Our room was spacious and modern with two wide single beds put together to create a king bed. The bathroom was ultra modern and it was all very clean.

We set out on our city orientation tour with Peter. We walked down to the old station which was destroyed by the massive earthquake in 1963, which apparently destroyed most of the city. It is now a museum, which although we tried to go in, was never open. We turned down the pedestrian street and came to an exhibition on Mother Teresa built on the site of the church in which she was christened. We continued on to the massive statue of Alexander the Great, and a bridge over the river through an area of elaborate buildings that felt as if they would be more at home in St. Petersburg, or maybe Venice. Whether the buildings were rebuilt, or whether it is merely a new façade on an old building I am not sure, as both exist in this city that seems to represent everyone’s else’s culture except its own.  We walked through an exhibition of statues and fountains, all very beautiful, but a little monotonous with so many in one place. 

We continued up through the narrow winding streets of the Turkish Bazaar, past shop windows glittering with gold and shiny silver. Our destination, Macedonian’s first micro-brewery!! I had a delicious “stout”…black …..very good!!

Our walk continued past Government House and the beginning of a protest by the opposition party, the conservatives, against the current socialist government over their handling of the tensions with Greece, in particular over the proposed concessions made with respect to the country's name as well as the poor state of the economy.  It was fairly quiet when we walked past, but reports in the newspapers talk about “several thousands” protesting. I spoke with some of the locals and it appears that the young people are quite against the current government because they are spending tons of money on “beautifying” the city….erecting masses of statues representing everything except Macedonia, and constructing elaborate buildings from earlier times and other countries. As one girl said: “it’s all false!”

We had a group dinner not far from the demonstration. The food was delicious. I had a goulash and mashed potatoes.Then we walked back to the hotel in the cool of the evening.