Skopje - 20th October

The day begins with a quick walk to the local park which houses the last of the monuments in Pristina which we have not seen, to the former President Rugova who took Kosovo to its current state of independence.  There is a great view over the city from this park.

We can afford to take our time this morning because our next destination, Skopje, is actually fairly close by, only 2 hours away.  The border crossing is easy, although disappointingly we don’t get a stamp from the Macedonians.  They probably think they are doing us EU citizens a favour as they are looking for membership, but we want these stamps.  Finding our way from the bus station to our hostel proves to be a bit tricky, they have renamed some of the streets but not taken down the street signs.

After checking into our hostel we walk down to the centre of the city which is only 10 minutes away.  Skopje is the largest of the cities we have been in so far, but given where our base is it seems quite small.  However the main square is unbelievable, with dozens of statues all over the place, and a giant fountain/statue of Alexander the Great.  We aren’t prepared for it, mostly because these have all been erected since our edition of Lonely Planet was published in 2009.  The new government is spending a fortune of rebuilding, and there is quite a bit of scaffolding around.  When it is all finished it is going to be some city to visit and photograph, but even with the building work we go a bit snap happy with all the photo opportunities.

After that we walk over the old stone bridge (another set of photos here) into the old Turkish city.  This is the usual maze of small streets with various shops, most selling some form of tourist tat, ending up in a vast market.  It’s all very interesting, but I’m not wholly sure it is the safest place to be after dark so as the sun goes down we head back into the modern city, for a pint in the Irish pub.  We eat some local dishes in a local restaurant on our way home which is very good, not quite as good as the previous day’s meal, but is much better value.