Skopje is the Las Vegas of the Balkans and Ohrid is Beautiful

Skopje is the Las Vegas of Macedonia 

Skopje is the capital city of The Republic of Macedonia and has an archaeological record dating back to at least 4000 BC. The former Yugoslavian country is currently embroiled in a battle with Greece over the name of their country, as Greece says they can’t be called Macedonia since that is (a) already the name of a Greek region (which is next to the Republic of Macedonia) and (b) it was the name of the kingdom ruled by Alexander the Great. So you have two totally different groups of people that consider themselves to be Macedonians and both believe that they have the historical right to the name. 

Since we really only had the morning in Skopje, everyone opted for the recommended walking tour with local guide, Miha. Miha is a local man, with tons of energy, self depreciating humor, and a wealth of knowledge about his home city and country. It was a super enjoyable tour.

The tour started off at the museum dedicated to Mother Teresa (now canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta). Saint Teresa was born on August 26, 1910 as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje. She is Albanian by birth, as Macedonia didn’t exist in 1910 and much loved in both countries. Saint Teresa lived in a small house in the center of Skopje until she was 18, at which time she moved to Ireland to devote herself to God. 

The house that Saint Teresa grew up in no longer exist in Skopje, but it is forever immortalized by bronze plates on the ground where the corners of the home once stood. It’s interesting that something so treasured is now sandwiched between a kiosk selling water and snacks and a kiosk selling books and walked/bike ridden over indefinitely. Maybe that’s why they built the museum a little ways away (on the site of the former church where she was baptized) to honor her, since the spot of her actual home was no longer available. 

Like most other places in this region of the world, Skopje (and Macedonia as a whole) was under the rule of various different empires (Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ottoman, Nicaea, Normans, among others). Every invading force would reconstruct or change a lot of the infrastructure of the city when they came in and therefore there’s a little bit of a lot of different cultures around the city.

On July 26, 1963, an earthquake at 5:17am decimated about 80% of the city. While the quake wasn’t of a large magnitude, most of the buildings were not built to handle to shifting earth, and they all collapsed. Following the quake, many other countries donated funds, personnel, and supplies to help reconstruct the city. The reconstruction was done mainly using modernist and Baroque architecture, so you have very modern buildings made of glass and metal next to old looking buildings with white columns and stone structures.

In 2010, the Macedonian government decided to spend about €80 million on a massive project to redevelop Skopje. Drawing inspiration from the great civilizations from the past, the project was meant to give the city an impressive, and historic appearance. The project is called Skopje 2014 and initially envisaged the construction of some 40 monuments, sculptures, renovated facades and new buildings. Here we are in 2018 and the government is still dumping more money into the project (they’re now at €560 million) thus sparking much controversy within the community as one side thinks the make over will increase tourism and business relations with the rest of the world (which it has), while the other side thinks the millions of Euros dumped into the project could be better spent on Macedonia‘s people (which in a country with 30+% unemployment, they’re not wrong).

According to Miha, the government officials that commissioned this project were mentally ill; once they started, they just couldn’t stop. The city currently has over 200 different statues. Originally the statues were all made from bronze, but then the supply became limited, but the “need for more” didn’t lessen and so they started commissioning them to be made from plaster. Then the space on the ground became limited, and so they started placing the statues on the tops of buildings. Now they have so many statues that they’re running out of people to honor and are creating statues dedicated to brother’s of uncle’s of mother’s of famous people or just everyday individuals. 

In addition to the hundreds of bronze statues that were created to look a lot older, Skopje’s government also likes to create their own version of other countries’ national monuments. There is a small sculpture version of the Sydney Opera House, an Arch d’Triumph, replica Danish boats (used as hotels and restaurants), and a Charles Bridge (doesn’t really look like Charles Bridge except that is is made to look antiquated and lined one side by statues representative of famous artisans and philosophers on the other side by statues of important military and political persons). Almost all of these buildings and statues have gone up in the last decade. The end result of all of this artistic expression is that Skopje looks like Las Vegas. It’s beautiful and the sculptures majestic and huge, but the overall feel is one of a front or fake facade.

If you cross one of the many pedestrian bridges and go to the older side of the Vardar River, there is less evidence of Skopje 2014. On the eastern bank of the river lies the Old Bazaar, a relic of the Ottoman Empire and supposedly the second largest in the world (behind the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul). The Bazaar was built in the 12th century as the city’s center of commerce, and remains so to today. This area is a series of narrow streets with colorful shops selling everything from traditional clothes and wedding dresses to sliver, rugs, and Turkish sweets; several mosques, two churches, some türbes (Turkish for tombs), and a clock tower, among other gems. We meandered through the Bazaar and eventually ended up at the Fortress above.

The first incarnation of the Skopje Fortress (referred to by locals as “Kale” (Turkish for “Fortress”)) was built in the 6th century using limestone and travertine from the Roman city of Skupi (which is where Skopje gets its name). Now the Fortress mainly consists of the outer walls with a gate tower or two and some foundation ruins in the center. There are however some magnificent views of the city that make the climb up the hill worth it.

Our tour ended back in the Old Bazaar, outside of the Mustafa Pasha Mosque, with just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat (Em and I split from the main group and got chicken burgers that consisted of two buns stuffed with chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, French fries, and special sauce and were the size of a small baby) before climbing back aboard the minibus for a 3+ hour drive to Ohrid.

Ohrid is the “Jerusalem of The Balkans” and a beautiful little lakeside city in the  southwest region of Macedonia. At one point in the 17th century there were 365 different chapels/churches in the city; one for each day of the year. Now there are a lot more Muslims in the country than Christians and the number of chapels/churches has declined drastically.

Due to our tour guide’s normal guesthouse being booked already, we had the happy fortune of staying in an adorable little BnB guesthouse a short walk from the main river promenade. It was definitely not a bad place to recharge for the evening.

Saint Naum Without a Boat, Ohrid, and Pathways and Failed Night Photography

Zejko stated that he loves the Monastery of Saint Naum so much that he was willing to drive everyone there on his day off and thus save us the boat fare we’d have to pay if we were to go on our own. Everyone profusely thanked him and loaded back into the minibus for the hour ride along the rim of the lake to the Monastery. 

Monastery of Saint Naum is an Eastern Orthodox monastery located on the beautiful Lake Orhid, 29 miles from the city of Orhid. It is named after the medieval Saint Naum, who founded it 905 AD.

You enter the monastery (if arriving by car) through a stone archway, that opens onto a promenade lined by well manicured lawns and trees; trinket kiosks on the left, and the rich blue hues of Lake Orhid on the right. As you progress down the promenade, there are a few restaurants and row boats for hire that will take you around the tranquil rivers within the monastery grounds for around €3 a person. Eventually you climb a stone pathway, through gorgeous grounds, to get to the pinnacle, where the main church is. The church is definitely worth a look see as almost all of the walls and ceilings within the church are still lined with their original frescos or hand carved wooden ornamentation. It’s quite beautiful both inside and outside. 

After visiting the church at the center of the Monastery and taking some nice panoramic photos of the lake and the grounds, our group retreated back down the hill and hailed one of the boat guides. Everyone, minus Louise and Zejko, clambered onto a small boat and enjoyed a peaceful row down the river. The water was pretty clear and you could see the hundreds of small bubbling underwater springs if you peered down. It was a really relaxing 30 minute ride.

A short break for some coffee and it was back in the van to return to Orhid. On the return trip, we stopped briefly at the Bay of Bones. While the name sounds wonderfully macabre and right up Em and my’s alley for one reason, it’s actually a “Museum on Water” and a Roman military fortification. The museum is an authentic reconstruction of a part of the pile-dwelling settlement, dating back between 1200 and 700 BC that used to inhabit this area. The Roman military fortification (Gradiste) was reconstructed on the hill above the Bay of Bones simultaneously with the Water Museum. The two sites are linked so that the visitor can see what the area was like in both prehistoric and ancient times.

While we stopped at the outlook above the Museum, we didn’t actually get to go in. We had the option, but since I was the only one with any real inclination to visit and everyone else seemed like they’d be less than thrilled to wait 30 minutes in the hot sun for me to geek out on archaeological replicas, I never spoke up and thus missed my chance to see this site. Guess that’s just a reason I’ll have to come back to the region.

We left the Bay of Bones and headed to Samuel’s Fortress, located at the top of Ohrid city. The Fortress was built in the 10th century on the remains of a 4th century BC fortress. The Fortress, like most of the others in the region, currently contains primarily just the outer walls and some towers (heavily reconstructed in this case); as well as the ruins of a few of the interiors buildings. Your admission allows you to climb up super small and steep stairs to the top walls to wander around and taken in the views out over the city. In the center are some ruins and in the lower part of the Fortress, evidence of an archaeological dig could be seen. I asked Louise if I could stay here and join the dig...she wasn’t as thrilled with the idea as I was 😉.

From the Fortress, our group wandered through the woods on a path that Louise had to reaffirm was legit and not some really weird off roading. The path passes by a new library that the city is building and appears to a building that can house the entire population of the city, and then some. We all thought it was supposed to be a hotel.

As you go down the path, you end up at the Saint John at Kaneo Church. This is a Macedonian Orthodox church situated on the cliff over Kaneo Beach, overlooking Lake Ohrid. It’s the picturesque church that popped up in all the Google searches that Em had found when researching this vacation and therefore she’d been keen the whole trip to take the same photograph as everyone else had. When we got to the church however, the sun was superbly situated behind the Church so that no matter how you took the photo, it was gonna be washed out or blasted with sun. We took our bad photos and then opted for another “The Shining” photo, as that has become our theme for the trip - taking creepy, non-smiling twin photos at different points of interest.

We then continued the rest of the way down the path to the promenade and Old Town, where we split from the rest of the group. Everyone kind of went their own ways for a few hours. Em and I got a lovely ice coffee (which means coffee and ice cream) to recharge and then wandered the touristy streets for a while. We also stopped in the “Cake and Bake” bakery where Zejko said the best burek (salty feta-like cheese pastry) was. I got one and decided Zejko and I have different ideas of best.

After a little bit of a respite back that the BnB in the afternoon to recharge, Em and I set out again to explore another part of the city and get some night shots of the lake and Saint John’s Church. The plan had been to get to the water’s edge, hail a small boat, and motor back over to the church so that Em could try again to get the perfect shot of the church and the bay, with the sunset behind. It was a good plan, but I took too long getting out of the hotel and we reached the water with minutes to spare in terms of the sun sinking beneath the mountains of Albania on the horizon. Em did get a couple of nice photos of the sun’s rays spaying across the water as it sunk below the horizon.

Since our shot at a boat ride was gone, we wandered the local bike/run/walk path for a while. This path seemed to be the popular place to go with the family in the evening as everyone was on it when we first started our evening stroll, but as the darkness of evening deepened, everyone seemed to melt back into the shadows (or more likely retreated home for supper). We took the hint and heading back to the old town to meet Louise and Zejko for a pizza dinner.