One of our goals with this leg was to not do any flights other than our flight to Europe and our flight home. We knew we’d start in Sofia and end up in Rome, slowly making our way via buses, trains, and ferries. Our other constraint was a desire to be in Europe for about four months, requiring us to spend over a month of that time outside the Schengen area (a collection of countries that have border-free travel but only allow outsiders to stay 90 days within a 180-day period without a visa). Bulgaria and Italy are both in Schengen (Bulgaria newly so as of January), but the two countries separating them (along with the Adriatic Sea), North Macedonia and Albania, are not.
Our first stop in North Macedonia was its capital of Skopje. There isn’t a direct bus between Bankso and Skopje, even though they’re only about three hours apart. To avoid taking a three-hour bus back to Sofia only to get on a 5-hour, we decided to hire a private ride through the website daytrip.com. This was expensive ($205) but definitely worth it, since three hours by car is far more comfortable and efficient than eight hours by bus. Our driver was prompt in picking us up, communicating via WhatsApp the day before and that morning. He was an interesting guy and talked to us most of the ride. We felt like we learned a lot about life in former Yugoslavia (he was nostalgic for it).
We’d decided to spend three nights in Skopje, which is my threshold for renting an Airbnb (review below). The apartment was far bigger than we needed but nice and had a desk for Chad next to the dining table.
We picked up some groceries and later went for a walk in the big park near our place and then went out to dinner at a Macedonian place called Restaurant Skopski Merak. We got a baked eggplant appetizer, nice salad, tavče gravče (the local specialty baked bean dish), and a grilled chicken shish. The food was good but not great, but we had a nice time.
We made our second day in Skopje a full workday with dinner in, but our third and final day brought another Christmas adventure. As I explained in my Tokyo, Hanoi, and Plovdiv posts, Chad and I give each other experiences for Christmas. This year, we did them all as joint gifts planned together with constraints created through random drawings across three categories:
- Country: Japan, Vietnam, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Albania, and Italy
- Activity type: attraction, event, overnight, free, daytrip, and tour
- Subjects (inspired by Trivial Pursuit): science/nature, sports/leisure, arts/entertainment, culture/education, history, and food/drink
North Macedonia was combined with free and culture, so we decided to design our own cultural tour of Skopje using ChatGPT. This worked out well because Skopje is a pretty cultural city and is known as the “City of Statues” as a result of the “Skopje 2014” project that erected statues all around the city. This was in part an attempt to add a cultural element to the city, whose historical landmarks had been largely destroyed by an earthquake in 1963. The project was controversial on many levels (mainly the expense and corruption), but it makes for an interesting backdrop to the city.
We started on Macedonia Street, the pedestrian “promenade”, in front of the Mother Teresa Memorial House. She was born in Skopje and there’s a small museum there in her honor. Then we went to Macedonia Square, which has a large equestrian statue in the middle that is unofficially Alexander the Great (a lot of contention between North Macedonia and Greece over this, as well as the countries name – the “north” is a compromise to placate Greece).
From there we crossed the Stone Bridge, which dates back to 1451, though has had to be reconstructed several times. This leads to the older part of the city, including the Old Bazaar area and Kale Fortress, which had great views over the city. We walked back down to the river to the area with the major cultural establishments including museums and the Opera and Ballet Building, then walked over the Art Bridge (full of statues) to take a short cafe break.
Once we were revived, we went to one of the art galleries that have been installed in the old Turkish baths. The first one we tried, closer to the main area, was closed, but the second in the Old Bazaar area was open and very worthwhile. It was a retrospective of a Macedonian photographer whose work was quite interesting, especially juxtaposed in the bathhouse architecture. Though this part of our cultural tour wasn’t free, the entry was very affordable at 100 denar each (about $2.40).
This felt like a perfectly cultural cap to our tour, so we went to lunch at a cafe in the Old Bazaar, splitting a Turkish breakfast with Turkish tea for Chad and blueberry juice for me. It brought us back to the many great breakfasts we enjoyed in Turkey.
We rested, worked, and packed through the afternoon and then that evening went out for fancy cocktails at a bar called Lobby just up the road from our apartment, followed by a great Madonian dinner around the block in a very cute restaurant along a small park. We stayed vegetarian and made a meal from cheese-stuff eggplant, carrots with yogurt and nuts, beet salad, and bread.
The next day, we were able to hail a taxi outside our apartment to take us to the bus station and got our bus to our next North Macedonian destination, Ohrid.
We enjoyed our time in Skopje but didn’t fall in love with it. It was interesting but we feel like we saw the major sights and won’t need to return. Still, it was a great introduction to the country of North Macedonia and we’re very glad we made the time to see it.
Skopje Airbnb review – Wonderful apartment in a great neighborhood near the big park. Communication with Jasmina was very friendly. We had a little trouble finding the entrance (it’s around the back of the building) but overall check-in was very easy. It was nice to have an elevator for bringing in our luggage. The wifi worked great and the kitchen had everything you’d expect. My husband and I were very comfortable in Jasmina’s apartment.