When you find airplane tickets for under $200 for four people to a somewhat faraway and definitely unique country, you make that purchase! (SEPA card not required!)
And that is how we came to visit Skopje, Macedonia.
Family selfie on W!zz air (ha ha ha, no kidding, that is the name of the airline!) W!zz air verdict? Meh. Liquor and beer selection was mediocre, they only allow ONE carry on bag (as opposed to even the cheap RyanAir who allows a small roller and a hand bag!), and the airplane wasn't the cleanest. That's why we always bring wipes!
We got to our AWESOME AirBnB place in the western part of the city a bit later in the evening, but our host Maksim's mother was there to greet us and to recommend a nice little traditional Macedonia restaurant, where I ate Tavche Gravche, which are beans cooked in a clay pot. It was on my scratch off food map, so I can go ahead and scratch that one off! Do you see the tomatoes in the bowl behind it? They were out of this world. Macedonia has a thing for tomatoes... and these in particular were outstanding!
We ordered a couple of Zlaten Dab's with our dinner. "Hmmm, this has a familiar taste," I said. "Kind of like something American that I've had before." "Yeah," says my husband. "It tastes just like Rolling Rock!" 😮
Our tour of Macedonia through the eyes of terrible old iPhone's continues... while we were at this restaurant, this man, who was VERY CLEARLY in his 20s comes in off of his moped in a Santa costume. He gave the kids little treats, picked up some food, and left. He was very animated, and kicked his legs back and forth as he sped off. Believe it or not, over the next three days we would see him THREE TIMES! He waved at us every single time!
After dinner, our host Emi went with Todd to the local police station to "register" us all as guests the country. This is required if you are staying in Macedonia for longer than 48 hours. If you stay at a hotel, the hotel will do it for you (although really, I'm not sure if I trust all of these people with my passport number!). If you stay in a private home, as we did, you can either go on your own or you can go with the host. I recommend going with someone who speaks Macedonian because Todd said hardly anyone at the police station spoke a lick of English!
The first morning view from our apartment. Very pretty! You can barely see WAY in the distance the Kale Fortress, and a bit closer, the cross on top of the St. Clement of Ohrid church. It's the largest cathedral of the Macedonian Orthodox church!
Much like in Spain, there are a TON of random cats and dogs roaming around. Much of Macedonia is pretty run down. It's one of the poorest countries in Europe, but the people were incredibly friendly and very proud of their country.
Much of Skopje looks like this. I won't fool you with a ton of beautiful pictures, although parts of it are really lovely. There's lots of old Communist era housing, drab colors, terrible roads and sidewalks, and surprisingly lots of trash everywhere.
Ok I get I'm not really selling you on Skopje yet, am I? When Todd went with Emi to the police station to get registered, she told him the story of this incredibly beautiful building. It belongs to the current ruling party of Macedonia, the VMRO-DPMNE party. People were mad at this sort of wasteful spending. In a country this poor, where the unemployment rate is currently over 27%, they were very upset by this grandiosity.
My best guess on this graffiti project was "Vote Trump. 5,000 robots in play."
This is the former train station in Skopje. You can see damage on the left side of the building. It was heavily damaged in the 6.1 earthquake that they had back in 1963 (!!!) and still hasn't been fully repaired (although the interior is now a museum). The time on the clock is 5:17 pm, which is the exact time of the earthquake that killed over a thousand people on that July day.
After checking out some of the cool things that Emi had pointed out to Todd the evening before, we made our way down the main drag toward Macedonia Square. You can see Christmas lights hanging above Todd and the kids. They had Christmas lights EVERYWHERE in Skopje. I mean EVERYWHERE. According to Emi, many people think they are excessive. I personally loved them. It really felt like the holidays there!
There is certainly no shortage of awesome signs in any part of Europe. Coffee: A hug in a mug!
There's also no shortage of statues in Skopje. One could definitely proclaim it the statue city of Europe (dwarfs of Wroclaw not withstanding!)
Juuuuust a statue of a bull.
Grant laughed SO hard at this random loaf of bread on the ground. He made me take a picture of it!
Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in Skopje when it was a part of the Ottoman Empire (which it was from the late 1300s until the early 1900s.) Although she moved to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto and to learn English in Ireland in 1928, she spent most of her life helping the poor in India. The Memorial House of Mother Teresa was not the actual home she was born and raised in (obvi) but was built on the place that her former Catholic church stood. It was where she was baptized at one day old and where she received her first communion.
Todd and the kids with a statue of Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Massachusetts connection! St. T hanging with Eddie K.
Although this isn't her birthplace (that was destroyed in the 1963 earthquake along with 80% of the rest of the city), the Memorial House of Mother Teresa does include a few personal items from her days here on Earth, including her bed!
Mother Teresa's actual birth certificate (actually issued in 1928 when she went to Calcutta).
Mother Teresa's rosary and one of her famous sari's.
There is a little chapel on the top floor of the Memorial House where we all sat and prayed for a bit.
Walking outside of the Memorial House, we found a small protest going on. Not surprising that it was a female's reproductive rights protest since Mother Teresa was WELL known for her anti abortion stance. The lady (ahem) on the right of the sign had written on her bodysuit, "My pussy, my business." A nice little toss at Donald Trump there.
Of the 12 kabillion statues in Skopje, I liked this one a lot. Not political, not military. Just the traditional Macedonia dance!
We finally made our way to Macedonia Square. It was all decked out for Christmas! The fella in the upper left is Alexander the Great.
Lunch at La Terrazza. With kids, sometimes you just go for pizza and noodles. But GUESS WHAT? This fabulous restaurant has MAKERS MARK!!!!
Long shadows in Macedonia Square.
There are LOTS of little independent book sellers on the street.
Someone sprayed graffiti in all of the lions eyes on the Alexander the Great statue. They also sprayed graffiti on their unmentionables!
Me and my babes with the Stone Bridge behind us in Macedonia Square.
The Macedonia obsession with Alexander the Great is quite interesting. Mostly because he wasn't actually from Macedonia (as the borders today define it). He was born in Pella, which is in Macedonia, but on the Greek side. A side story related to this: According to the United Nations, Macedonia is actually known as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" because Greece actually claims the shortened form "Macedonia" for one of their regions. Constitutionally though, they are the Republic of Macedonia. Greece has never been thrilled with Macedonia trying to lay claim to many people, traditions and symbols that are actually Greek. The Macedonians of Greece very much feel that they are trying to steal their identity! (Not just in the naming but in the symbology and historical figures).
We were getting ready to cross the famous Stone Bridge when we heard a couple of kids banging on some drums and singing. Nothing offensive, just asking for money as you see all over Europe and large cities in general. These two guys come up to these kids and one of the guys smacks one of the kids in the face, and basically makes them get off of the bridge!
Meanwhile, this guy... who was either the dad of one or more of the kids, or was their beggar pimp, starts yelling at the two men and they're shouting back and forth while we are just standing there watching them! The guy eventually walks away with the kids.
From the Stone Bridge, you can see a statue of a woman in her bathing suit who is ready to dive into the Vardar River. You can also see the upside down feet of her friend, who preceded her in the jump. The water was a bit high, so it was kind of hard to see those little feet!
The Bridge of Civilizations in Macedonia, with the large, Greek style bank building on the left. At first Todd thought it was funny that they all had what he believed to be "cheesy Greek style" architecture, but then he remembered where we were!
The opposite side of the Stone Bridge on the Vardar River you can see another bridge being built, and the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle to the right.
There are plenty more statues on the opposite side of the Stone Bridge. Perhaps some lions coming out of a (closed off) fountain?
Or horses on the other side, also coming out of a (closed off) fountain?
I particularly liked this statue of mamas and their babies.
The opposite side of the fountain had a pregnant woman... who I immediately empathized with. Never again!
In an attempt to once again claim a Macedonian Greek man as their own, in Karpoš's Rebellion Square, you have a massive statue of who else but Phillip II. Interestingly, this statue was made in Vicenza! The official name of this statue is "Warrior" because any other name upsets the Greeks!
This building is on the right side of Karpoš's Rebellion Square if you are facing away from the Stone Bridge. I'm not sure how I would feel living above several floors of apartments that must have been so run down that they required a concrete fill in!
In general, things just aren't well taken care of. Part of that is likely because of the relative poor nature of the country.
The Old Bazaare in Skopje is one of the oldest largest found in the Balkans (as well as outside of Istanbul). Most of the shops sell either incredibly intricate fabric (something you might wear to a formal dance), wedding dresses, jewelry, shoes and bags, and of course... Macedonian souvenirs.
Creepy Ken doll heads. Sweet lettuce, bro.
Winter time in the Old Bazaar.
Step right up and get yourself some jewelry!
Partial building. And shoes on the right for 500 denar which is roughly equivalent to $8.48.
I still am not sure whether crumbled buildings are a result of lack of money to maintain them or whether they were damaged in the 1963 earthquake and never fixed.
Just to the west of the Bazaar is the Kale Fortress. Believe it or not, this is on the highest point in the city.
Kale Fortress at sunset, with the Millennium Cross overlooking the city. The first fortress was built in the 6th century!
Millennium Cross up on the Vodno Mountain. Kale Fortress, like most other things in Europe (stop me if you're heard this one before!) has been destroyed and rebuilt several times, most recently in the earthquake of 1963. It was only recently rebuilt, surprisingly.
This is what it looked like in the 1920s prior to the 1963 earthquake. It was much bigger than what we saw! (Credit to Wikipedia).
Kale is the Turkish word for Fortress. It's actually pronounced "Kah-lay." So are we calling it Fortress Fortress?!? Speaking of pronunciation, did you know Skopje is pronounced "Scope-yay?"
When you don't want someone to walk down a stairway, you just put up some sheet metal and some barbed wire. What's the worst that can happen!?
A brief history of the area: As far as we know, people inhabited this area as far back as 4000 BC. In fact, around 2007, they found wood and clay items from around 3000 BC. The first fortress, as I mentioned was built in the 6th century but was quickly destroyed by (guess what!) an earthquake in 518 AD. They think it was rebuilt in the 10th/11th centuries and has been around in somewhat of an unofficial capacity since then (as in, not inhabited by any Kings or anything like that!)
This absolutely cracked me up! It reminds me of the Crown Plaza or the Star Market that sit over the Mass Pike in Boston! Just, you know... South East European University, sitting over the highway.
The beautiful Mustafa Pasha's Mosque. More on this later, as we went here the next day! Notice the loudspeakers on the minaret which call people to prayer five times a day.
Me on the Fortress Fortress, with the Stone Bridge in the background.
Here's a close up of the Stone Bridge as it leads to Macedonia Square. You can see the large "Alexander the Great" statue just to the right of center.
Now that's a pretty sunset!
The view of part of the Kale Fortress from the actual ground.
We didn't have a chance to see the Holocaust Museum, but this was a very sad monument just outside of the building. One child is hugging a shoe and another is hugging a scarf or some other piece of clothing, presumably of parents who are never coming back.
The Millennium Cross looks down upon the heart of the city.
The big tree in the center of Macedonia Square was just SO pretty! Sometimes it was white, sometimes it was red!
Me and my man in Macedonia Square.
"Alexander the Great" by dusk. I put his name in quotes because it's technically not supposed to be a statue of him, but of course... it is. He is technically known as, "The Great Warrior."
"Let's all pretend that we are each in our own room!" Of course, Grant will dab!
You can see the tower of the Evangelical church going up in the distance above the Christmas lights on Macedonia Str.
We swung by Mekicite od Straža for a quick drink to waste some time before we went out for some dinner. Natalie ordered an apple juice and it came like this. She was pretending to drink wine!
This sign was HILARIOUS. "We are twins" (thanks for telling me!) This was up on the path back to our apartment from the old town area.
We went to another great (and pretty inexpensive) restaurant for dinner near our apartment, called Meana Kerpic. The food was great but every time you ordered a drink, they went back into the bathroom to get the beer (which was FREEZING because every time someone opened the door, we could feel it!) So bizarre! Are you keeping my beer cold in the bathroom!?!
Day two took us to the Millennium Cross, but not before passing the Ministry of Justice which had been hit heavily with graffiti (paintball?!)
There have been a lot of protests this year in particular. The one that caused this colorful damage was a protest of "Protestiram" (or, "I protest") back in April. People were very angry that the President had pardoned 56 corrupt politicians who were involved in a wiretapping scandal.
On a less serious note... BREAKFAST! This was Todd's breakfast... naturally, the kids and I had mekici, a traditional fried dough from Macedonia (and Eastern Europe in general). I have a rule.. breakfast always after political graffiti!
Many of the statues of Skopje are of men with guns. Like... so many of them, I'm not even going to put them all on this blog. This fella, Hristo Uzunov was a Bulgarian revolutionary involved in some uprisings who eventually killed himself.
The Macedonia Gate, or Porta Macedonia cost 4.4 million Euros to build.
Also in Pella Square (behind the Porta Macedonia) is a park (please note the randomly dug up dirt in the foreground, some exposed wires and who knows what else!) This statue is actually dedicated to those who died in the civil unrest that resulted in the deaths of both Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. Because much of northwest Macedonia is the home of ethnic Albanians (from Albania and Kosovo), they were trying to secede from the rest of Macedonia. It was unsuccessful, but lasted for 9 months and several hundred people died in the fighting.
Little girls and boys don't know who this is. He's the Tsar Samuil, or Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria. He ruled from 997 to 1014, AD.
Our next stop was one we had really been looking forward to. Millennium Cross. We took the #25 bus from Rekord Centar (the side of the road that is heading west! Special thanks to the awesome waiter at Mekicite od Straža who told us which direction to go in!) and it took us directly to Vodno. This is the name of the mountain on which the cross resides. Super easy, although that bus ride was A BIT TERRIFYING. I'm not a fan of heights, as you can see from the picture above. Once you reach the bus stop, it's a very short walk (follow the crowd!) to the cable car. It's only about 60 cents (US) or 35 denar to ride to the top! Of course, you will need another 35 denar to get down. But the ride was surprisingly ok, despite my incredible fear of heights.
The Macedonia version of our favorite sign. Halt! This guy is just a bit chubbier and has glasses!
Snow capped mountains over western Skopje. This was the only picture I took on the way up because I just couldn't handle it.
Todd, however, took this pic of the kids. Skopje is in the background.
This could legitimately not be more beautiful.
The hubs looking over the Vardar River valley.
Skopje is surrounded by mountains on three sides (north, west and south). So when cold fronts come in, they kind of sweep over the city, without really getting down in the valley to clean it out. Hence a lot of fog and smog.
Super cool panorama!
It's after noon and somehow I still need to get back down this mountain.
But the views! Todd said, "This is my favorite thing that we've done so far here!"
Along the trail at the top, there are various little playgrounds. The kids were in heaven.
Natalie and Grant were CONVINCED that these little girls on the top of the playset (to the left, one little girl has pink sunglasses on) had a crush on Grant! Grant (to the right) kept looking back at us and kept laughing!
Just playing with the wide zoom lens!
The mountains and valley to the south of Vodno Mountain.
Where my kids get ALL of their goofiness!
Cable cars over Skopje. They even have advertisements on them ha ha. At first, knowing their earthquake history, this was definitely more terrifying than usual. But then we learned that the cable cars were made in Austria and I felt *a little bit* better.
Interesting floodplain management techniques as this little stream ran down the mountain. In case you were wondering, there is NO FISHING here!
Natalie was very interested to visit an active mosque for the first time. To be honest, in all of my travels, neither had I. I have a friend who was raised Muslim so I asked her a few things before we left about etiquette and customs. It was incredibly helpful because I feel it's best to respect all customs and religions, whether you practice it or not. We got there RIGHT before the call to prayer, and as I understand it, if you aren't Muslim, you shouldn't be in the mosque while they are praying. This is the Mustafa Pasha Mosque that was built in 1492.
The call to prayer (adhan) went out over the loudspeakers on the minaret. You could hear similar calls to prayer (yet different) from at least two other nearby mosques. This building is still largely intact from the year it was built, despite the 1963 earthquake. It's made of brick and limestone.
Natalie and I wore our headscarves (hijab, but ours were just simple winter scarves) while we waited for the call to prayer to end, and for all of the people inside prayer to leave. When entering any mosque, you must take your shoes off (so make sure those socks are clean and without holes! Although admittedly... if your socks have holes in them, then they're actually quite holy!)
They were actually finishing up prayer when we got there (oops!) but it was over pretty soon after we walked in. The Imam said it was ok to take pictures, but I didn't take very many! The dome was VERY pretty though! There's no furniture in the mosque, and the floor is carpeted (and very soft!) We didn't spend much time, as there isn't much to see, but if you look closely up above the chandelier, you can see the dome paintings didn't line up when it was last restored by the Turkish (yes, Turkish) government in 2011.
A couple of men came in to pray as we were leaving, and so they left their shoes.
It was only about 4:30 when we left, but hey... welcome to Europe in the near wintertime.
We walked back through the Bazaar and past the Kale Fortress, all lit up in the evening.
I just love the Millennium Cross looking down from high up on the mountain. Of course, about a third of the residents of Skopje are Muslim, so they were less than pleased with this statue as they felt the Orthodox (etc.) community was trying to demonstrate that their religion was better than any other.
Walking to dinner, past the Stone Bridge, lit up at night.
Me and the hubs at the Stone Bridge, Skopje.
Nailed it. When there's some damage to the sidewalk, just toss on some rebar and slap on some concrete and it will be fiiiiiine....
The Art Bridge was actually really pretty with statues of famous artists and musicians, along with pretty lights lining it and leading you to the Independent Macedonia colonnade. After dinner at an Irish pub (kind of a thing Todd and I do in various cities around the world), Todd had to return to the police station to "deregister" us since we were to leave in the morning on the following day.
Alas, we had to go home on Monday after our short three night stay in Skopje, but I certainly wouldn't mind going back. It's not expensive, the people are friendly and I would really like to visit some of the lake areas (Ohrid in particular). It seems like a good starting point for visiting other nearby countries as well (Kosovo, Serbia, Albania in particular).
Until next time, Skopje!
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