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Published: October 10th 2008
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Skopje from the Kale
Cityscape of the Macedonian capital. The only possible reason there is no direct train from Sofia to Skopje can be to see who is man enough to take the bus. This was the most unrelaxing six-hour trip ever. Our coach wound its way high up the mountainside in the pouring rain along narrow, unlit roads. Of course, as it was through a border point there were plenty of trucks coming the other way, causing our driver to lean ever closer to the precipice above a drop of around 1,000 metres. At some points I really wished he would get off the phone and concentrate.
Arriving in one piece at around 9pm we wearily accepted an offer from a hawking taxi driver to take us to our hostel as we were unsure of its location. During a five minute ride where our Del Boy courier tried to flog us accommodation, a sightseeing trip to Lake Ohrid, a ride on to Tirana and his mother (OK I made that last one up), he eventually drew breath before charging us 10 euros. We paid up, but it turned out we had been taken for a ride in more than one way. The journey back four days later cost
National Museum
The clock at the front of the national museum is frozen at 5.17am, the time of the devastating earthquake in 1963. less than a pound.
Our hostel was run by a young woman, who seemed permanently to have lots of her friends round making lots of noise and smoking on the balcony. Which was fine by us bright young things but upset a German man of about 50 who complained bitterly on the first night and then stormed off. It was more a dosshouse than a hostel, but at 10 pounds a night and a dorm to myself for three of four nights I'm not going to complain.
Skopje, along with most of Macedonia, is at altitude and is hemmed in by mountains. This makes for a spectacular backdrop but for terrible weather, and it rained heavily for the whole of Thursday as we attempted to look around the city.
Fortunately it is not a big place and it all radiates from central Macedonia Square, large, open and devoid of any statues or sights to mark it out. Just north though is the Karmen Most (Stone Bridge) which dates from the 1400s and arches over the Vardar river.
Skopje's old, Ottoman quarter lies to the north of the bridge and is home to most of the city's
Turkish baths
One of the largest Turkish baths in Macedonia, in the Ottoman quarter. Muslim population. It is a maze of narrow cobbled streets with tradesmen and women working in windows and modest stores and stalls selling traditional crafts and goods. It is a different world to the large bank and company towers and high rises across the river. We lingered here for a while, wandering past the Daut Pasin Amam, a large Turkish bathhouse which now houses the national gallery, and the Mustafa Pasa mosque. This was being refurbished so we could not see the dome that was cracked by an earthquake. At this stage, a friendly stray dog had taken to us and followed us up to the ruins of the Kale, an 11th century castle which provided us with a panoramic view of the whole city.
We eventually shook off our four-legged friend and indeed I decided to go my own way as well, heading down to see the monument to the liberation of Skopje, which took place in 1944. This bronze statue features men, women and children looking fearsome and in the throes of battle, and commemorates the city being freed from Nazi control. A short stroll by the riverside is the city stadium set in parkland. Macedoniaś national
Karmen Most
Arguably one of the most famous buildings in Skopje, the Stone Bridge, or Karmen Most. team played England here during our ill-fated Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. The stadium features one dominating main stand but much of the rest was under construction so as the rain began to fall harder I retreated to the main square.
Here I took refuge in a place which surely provided a big draw for those England fans that had travelled to Skopje in 2006 - the Pub London. It is a faily lazy attempt at a theme pub with some donated English and Scottish flags and some Beatles tickets on the wall despite their Liverpudlian origins. Minutes later I was randomly followed in by Carmel and Si, who clearly were similarly drawn in by the British tractor-beam. We waited in vain for the drizzle to ease up before splitting up again and continuing our sightseeing. I ventured down the main street to see a modest statue of Mother Theresa, who was born in Skopje despite being heavily associated with Albania. Further down was the city museum, which has a dominant clock face frozen forever at 5.17. This is the time in the morning on 27th July 1963 where the entire face and cityscape of Skopje was changed forever by
Training in the shadow of the stadium
A side trains beneath the national stadium, where England played in 2006. an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale. Over a thousand people died, 120,000 were made homeless and nearly 80 per cent of the city was destroyed.
Upon returning to the hostel I discovered I had two room-mates. One was a girl in her early 20s but I still couldn´t tell you now if the other was a man or a woman. It had a deep voice and coughed like a bloke but five or six sneaky glances weren´t enough to give a definitive opinion. It is not important, I just like to know these things.
The following morning I once again set out alone and spent much of the morning trying to get a bank to change up some Bulgarian money I had left over. I admitted defeat and had a burrito for lunch in a riverside pub while I silently recited Anchorman quotes in my head (apologies to those who haven´t seen the film). Around on of the cityś two shopping centres just west of the stone bridge was a stall selling relics from the old Yugoslavian days. I bought two 500,000,000,000 dinar notes from the early 1990s when hyperinflation decimated the Yugoslav economy. Macedonia had
Statue of Mother Theresa
Statue of Mother Theresa along the main pedestrianised street in Skopje. broken free by then though, so it was a little peripheral, but a good find all the same.
That night I continued to indulge my socialist fascination by dragging the others to a unique restaurant with a big cut-out of Josip Tito welcoming us into an eatery decorated with communist propaganda posters. It was a great find, but it was derby day with Southend hosting Leyton Orient. As we moved on to a nearby cocktail bar, it emerged that we were tonking our east London friends and ended up 3-0 winners - our first victory over Orient in five years. Naturally this prompted more cocktails and our overworked waiter was caused to remark "You English, you drink, drink, drink!" in a good humoured manner. We finished the night in a club and returned in the wee small hours.
We had been due to leave Saturday but Si had discovered that a large festival was to take place that night to mark the end of summer. Sure enough, the whole city flocked to the main square and surrouding streets to see in the "White Night". There were spectacular dancing displays on the main stage, and live music played in
Liberation of Skopje monument
Monument to the freeing of the city from Nazi occupation. many of the packed riverside bars. A fireworks display ended the official festivities but the population stayed out enjoying themselves well into the night. It was great to be a part of and it was almost as prestigious occasion as the switching on of the Hockley Christmas Lights (again apologies for the in-joke to those not in the know).
Sunday was a travelling day, which are mostly uneventful. We did enjoy a pizza hand-made in front of us in a tiny but friendly cafe near our hostel. On leaving, the woman owner thanked us graciously and told us her son was a big fan of Manchester United. As everyone in Eastern Europe seems to be, either them, Chelsea or Liverpool. Nobody has expressed their love for FC Hockley, which is a double-edged sword I suppose as I was expecting lynch-mobs to blame me for abandoning them and thus contributing to their disastrous start to the season. I'm waffling.
We left for Albania on a night bus which was to take nine hours through more mountains. Our driver quickly moved to pass the time by putting a collection of Albanian songs on the coach DVD player. The display proudly
Streets of the Ottoman quarter
Narrow lanes of the Ottoman quarter. informed us there were 156 tracks. It was going to be a long ride.
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