After three days in Bulgaria, Jordan and I took a small bus to Skopje, Macedonia. The bus from there left at 7 AM, so we got up bright and early to go to the station, buy our tickets, and have some banitsa and coffee.
On the bus as our driver was about ready to leave, a man ran up and spoke to him through the window in Bulgarian. It appeared he was meant to ride the bus as well but was late. The driver was clearly unhappy about his tardiness, but waved him over to get in from the other side. The man got in, set down one of his bags, and whatever it was he said as he did so must have been pretty bad. The driver jumped out of his seat, came around to the door, and threw the man’s bags out of the bus and into the parking lot. The two yelled at each other before the man gave up and left. We were glad we came early!
The drive was fine and gave us a chance to see some nice countryside. This drive was about four hours, which doesn’t feel too long when you nap and listen to podcasts the whole way. About halfway through the trip, we stopped at the border in a tiny mountain town. We took all of our bags out and put them on a table to be inspected. The border patrol worker looked through our belongings as we shivered in the cold, and thankfully for us he did so quickly and not thoroughly.
When we arrived in Skopje, we again had to avoid pushy taxi drivers asking to give rides. We decided it would be easier just to walk the whole way with our bags than deal with finding a legitimate taxi at the bus station. It wasn’t too far of a walk, and the weather was more temperate here than in the mountains.
As we approached the main square, we couldn’t help but laugh as it was about what we had imagined based on the research we had conducted. In 2014, the Macedonian government began an initiative to increase tourism by building monuments. They spent millions of dollars and built literally hundreds of statues and redid the facade of public buildings. They did these monuments in faux Greco-Roman style with columns in front of the buildings. These monuments were built so hastily, that the quality was pretty low. The proportions were wildly off, giving the statues the appearance of action figures rather than people. In the center of their main square was a massive statue called Warrior on a Horse. It was named this because they weren’t allowed to call it Alexander the Great, as it would cause more trouble with Greece than they already have.
In our two days in Skopje, we honestly didn’t spend a ton of time outside of our airbnb. It didn’t take all that long to see the main attractions Skopje had to offer, and it honestly didn’t feel particularly safe there. We constantly felt a little on edge. Dozens of stray dogs roamed the city in packs (which while I did admire how adorable the dogs were, dogs in packs can be pretty dangerous). We actually saw someone doing 3 Card Monte, which was a scam I thought only happened in movies. In the Christmas market, we saw a group of children start fist fighting.
Skopje certainly had its surprises. What we did enjoy was a walk in the old bazaar, a market that has been happening since the 13th century. It was obvious that this market was truly a place people still bought their goods. The buildings in the Turkish area were actually old. Nearby, we also spotted (it was hard not to) a massive fort. The fort looked really impressive, so we were excited to check it out.
The Kale Fort was indeed cool, and a genuine old monument in Skopje, but it was not taken care of. Our walk along the walls was littered with garbage, and portions were in disrepair. It would be nice if Skopje instead spent the money revitalizing existing monuments and making the city a nicer and safer place rather than literally building two fake pirate ships on the river.
The other thing we did like about Skopje was drinking Macedonian wine, and eating burek. Burek is similar to banitsa as it is phyllo dough, egg, cheese, and spinach. We were very pleased to get huge servings of burek for very little Macedonian denar. We made sure to have one last serving of Burek at the airport before flying to Budapest.
