When we were booking this trip to Bulgaria, we thought we could go slightly further afield, on our non-Trabant driving days, and pop across the border into Serbia and visit the historic town of Nis, the birthplace of the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great. Tripadvisor offered a day roundtrip which looked just the ticket.
The morning of the trip dawned and as we were having breakfast in our hotel in Sofia, the local travel agent called to say the trip was cancelled. The reason being that it was taking 2 to 3 hours to get across the border, each way. Apparently, there were a lot of Turkish travellers on the way home to Turkey for their holidays and they were using the crossing along with the usual lorry traffic. Daniel, the local travel agent, said that if we wanted, he was taking a small group to Skopje, Macedonia, that day and we could join this tour. So after 20 seconds of debate we agreed to go to Skojpe, the capital of what is now called The Republic of North Macedonia.
Before becoming an independent country in 1991, The Republic of North Macedonia has been under the influence of the Romans, Serbs, Bulgarians, Ottoman Empire and for much of the 20th Century was part of Yugoslavia. Hence, from independence it was called The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia until its name change in 2018 to North Macedonia to settle a dispute with Greece over appropriation of symbols and figures that Greece considers Greek culture such as the Vergina Sun (on the old Macedonian flag) and Alexander the Great.
It was a good 4 hour drive to Skopje from Sofia and we crossed the border with the formalities taking about 10 minutes each way. In Skojpe we met our local guide who would show us around the town for a couple of hours. Skopje had a devastating earthquake in July 1963 that had reshaped the development of the town so the area around the River Vardar has been rebulit with many impressive buildings and statues of the likes of Alexander the Great. Some of the new riverside buildings were being used by Government departments and commercial businesses.
One of the parts of Skojpe that had not been devastated by the earthquake and cleared for rebuilding was the Old Souk area which contained many small shops selling all types of essentials for the locals, with some tourist shops for those things you never knew you needed. Mixed amongst the shops were some old bath houses (some were now used as museums) and caravanserai dating back to 15th century. A caravanserai is a travellers inn where the animals were put on the ground level overnight and the riders housed on the first floor. They were located a day’s ride from each other to not over-tax the animals, so roughly 30 miles apart along the trade route.
Probably the most famous resident of Skopje was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta. She was born in Skopje to Albanian parents in 1910 and after 18 years in Skopje she moved to Ireland and then to India where she spent most of the rest of her life until she died in 1997 at the age of 87. A museum dedicated to her life is in the centre of Skopje and it displays the Nobel Peace Prize certificate.
The final stop on our day trip to Macedonia was to visit the Matka Canyon where the Treska River has been dammed and the Matka Lake formed above it. The drive up the mountain to the dam was very tight and not for the nervous motorist. There are some interested Vreio caves that can be visited by a short boat ride from the dam and it is a very popular destination for locals on their days off. We were told that there are also some underwater caves that possibly could be the deepest in the world, although this has not been confirmed.
After the boat trip and caves we drove the 4 hours back to Sofia arriving at 10 pm. A long day but worth the trip.
Copyright: words and photos John Cruse 2022