2022 in [North] Macedonia (Skopje)
On October 8, 2022, the Balkan bus tour brought me to Skopje, the capital city of [North] Macedonia:
(Later that evening, I would take a third-party excursion into Kosovo lasting into the wee hours of the morning!)
Arrived back to the hotel at 03:00 on the 9th and woke up again at 07:00 to have breakfast on the rooftop of the restaurant. Everything had to happen quickly in order to rejoin the bus tour group to go into downtown Skopje!
Visit
The tour in downtown Skopje consisted of:
- Museum of the City of Skopje
- former railway station destroyed by the earthquake of 1963
- its clock fact permanently set to the time of the earthquake
- Macedonia Square
- Fountain of Alexander the Great
- actually built in 2014 as a revival of the classics
- Stone Bridge
- same idea as Macedonia Square
- Bazaar
- on the north side of the Vardar River
- Balkan coffee shop
Experiences
A thing that surprised me was the significant Albanian population in this part of [North] Macedonia. Street signs were tri-lingual in English, Macedonian and Albanian!
I also used a "questionable-looking ATM" without incident and withdrew some local [North] Macedonian denars for purchasing some fridge magnets and other souvenirs on the streets of Old Skopje.
Reflection
[North] Macedonia felt more "southern" to "northern" with a tendency to Old World customs and charms. A sizeable Muslim population and its tendency to revive classical architecture gave this vibe of Skopje wanting a return to pre-communist days.
Note
I use [North] with brackets on this page because of a naming dispute that the "international community" resolved in 2018; instead of calling their country simply Macedonia, its people must use the name "North Macedonia" in international settings. I do not agree with this name because it is not what the locals want to call their country.