Skopje the… great? The strange? The sympathetic?

Did you know that Macedonia has 300 sunny days per year, is home to one of the oldest lakes in Europe, has dramatic mountain ranges and enchanting forests, is rich in Greek, Roman, Slav and Ottoman heritage, offers some great sustainable culinary tourism, has a bizarre but very friendly capital city, a buzzing coffee-sipping scene, its churches are decorated with amazing frescoes, iconostasis and woodcarving, has the most charming and atmospheric lake town for a great holiday vibe and water sports, grows the largest amounts of watermelons and pepers I have EVER seen, feels very safe and is easy to travel? Well… I didn’t, but as of now I will recommend Macedonia to anyone looking for a cool, slightly off the beaten track, but very friendly country in Europe. It offers all the level of adventure you wish: from multi day hikes and mountain biking tours and sleeping in basic guesthouses to cultural and culinary discoveries and just chilling on a lakeside beach, watching the sunset, indulging on ice cream and sipping cocktails. And mixed with all that you’ll find some great food and very hospitable people. So tell me, did I sell it to you?

Before I start my Macedonian tale, let me first get something quite essential out of the way: the country’s name. Even though I’m using the name Macedonia in this blog (because it’s shorter) and locals mostly also call their country Macedonia, the official name since 2019 is North Macedonia and I will use this longer name just for this paragraph when I refer to this country. North Macedonia has been trying to accede to the EU since the beginning of the nineties, but Greece has always been blocking this as it does not want to recognise ‘another’ Macedonia since the most northern region of Greece is also called Macedonia (and lays south of North Macedonia – still following?). Greece sees these identical names as a potential territorial threat and therefore has been blocking North Macedonia in becoming a true independent state. In an effort to win Greece over and vote in favour of North Macedonia acceding to the EU (or at least making it to the next level in the accession procedure), the country changed its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia in 2019, but this was all in vain as Greece still objected. On the upside, this name change did allow North Macedonia to become a member of NATO in 2019.

To make things even more complicated, the historical/geographical/cultural region of Macedonia is actually divided between North Macedonia, the Greek region of Macedonia and Bulgarian Macedonia and apparently there aver everlasting discussions on the Macedonian identity and which country is allowed to claim which heroes, traditions, historical events and flags. I talked about this with people I met here and most of them feel that the government of North Macedonia is trying ‘coute que coute’ to please Athens by giving more and more away but without getting anything in return. Maybe the EU dream should be put to rest for a while and the focus should go back to developing this new country (their words, not mine). It’s like desperately wanting to join a party that you’re being turned away from over and over again. Not the best feeling. The people here don’t see why they couldn’t share this Macedonian identity with their neighbours and just bury the hatchet and get on with their lives. But I guess politics are never that simple.

Enough politics for now and it’s time to deep dive in the crazy capital city of Macedonia: Skopje! Since I first heard the name Skopje in school when learning the capital cities of Europe, this name fascinated me. A ‘kopje’ in Dutch is a little cup and I couldn’t believe that there was a city with a name very very closely rhyming with ‘kopje’ and this was one name I never got wrong on any geography test. Did anyone else have the same? Anyhow, I am very happy to have finally visited the city with the name that always made me giggle.

The city centre of Skopje feels like, how to say, Las Vegas on steroids… the previous government launched and implemented a project called ‘Skopje 2014’, which consisted of ‘embellishing’ the city with grotesque fake baroque-style buildings (they actually created and glued whole Styrofoam facades to give the impression of exteriors decorated with marble), enormous fountains, gigantic statues of warriors, enormous museums that look like Roman temples, pirate ships (turned into a hotel, nightclub or restaurant) on the almost dried out river that flows through the city, neon lights and big screens on the main square and an uncountable amount of statues. They were in such a sculpting frenzy with no street spots left for all the statues, that they started putting statues on the roofs of those enormous buildings and filling the sides of bridges with them. I have counted more statues of lions in Skopje than tourists in Kosovo… it’s hilarious, astonishing and a little sad at the same time. Think about what could have been done for the country with the money and time invested in this project (and the speed with which it was realised).

Apart from this over-the-top experiment, Skopje is actually a quite charming, friendly and easy to visit capital city. A 5th century fortress towers over the city from which you can clearly see that Skopje is divided into two by the Vardar River. One side of the river is home to a Ottoman style old bazaar with the appropriate cobbled streets, gold and silver shops, mosques and churches side by side, cafes where you can order delicious Turkish coffee and baklava, restaurants, old hammam turned into a gallery (I visited the exhibition of a Macedonian artist with some great paintings) and the first real tourist shops I have seen since the beginning of my trip! On the other side you will find the more modern part of the city with a big park where people spend their Sunday afternoon strolling with family and friends and doing sports. As everything is closed on Sunday, I did the same, discovering the park and reading a book sitting on a bench.

I spent 3 nights and 2 full days in and around Skopje and on the first full day I joined a free walking tour that starts every day at 10am from the Mother Theresa Memorial House (yes Mother Theresa was born in Skopje!) and led by a Skopje resident who is passionate about his city and gives you real honest insight into Skopje and its history. Rest of the afternoon (tour took about 3,5 hours), I spent having lunch, drinking coffee, organising my next destination (figuring out where to go next and how and for how long and to do what takes a lot of time…) and just watching the city go by.

On my second day in Skopje I decided to skip the hotel breakfast which was medium to low quality and go to a café I spotted the day before and that looked really nice. I had a carrot, apple, ginger, orange juice, a black coffee and a chia bowl with homemade cashew milk, peanut butter and fruit… everything my little Amsterdam (vegan) heart was screaming for after all the meat and cheese so far! I spoke to the owner of the café (it screams tourist on my face which has actually led to some really nice conversations because people take the time to ask you where you’re from, how you like their country so far and to give you some explanation about their café in this specific example) and he told that apart from products like coffee and banana’s, he tried to source all ingredient as locally as possible and make everything himself. This very much fits the trend of ‘support you locals’ that has been raging for the past year and a half, again another confrontation with the fact that although Macedonia felt totally unknown to me, I have a lot more in common with the people living there – in the urban areas – than I might have thought in the first place!

After this great breakfast it was time to take a taxi to Canyon Matka for some fresh air and a bit of exercise. The Lonely Planet informed me that Matka means ‘womb’ in Macedonian and that this place has a link with the Virgin Mary and this would explain the number of churches, chapels and monasteries that are hidden in the forest on the mountains surrounding Canyon Matka. I had read that this was a spectacular place and a popular stop for locals to come and enjoy the nature on the weekends and I certainly understand why! The lake that meanders through the canyon is only accessible by kayak or the limited number of licensed boats that brings visitors to a cave (and back) and kayaking on this lake with ‘canyon walls’ (is that the word?) on both sides and blue skies above is the most calming and peaceful experience I’ve had in a long time. The only thing I had to think about was to continue paddling, which was way easier than I thought, admire the landscape, and just enjoy the moment. The goal was to reach the entrance of a cave about 50 minutes paddling from the starting point. I’m glad I didn’t turn around earlier because the rock formations in this cave were like I’ve never seen before, they looked like pur foam gone out of control. On the way back I nice little blister appeared on my thumb, and it’s only just healed (from 8 days ago), a fading memory of an amazing day! On the way back to Skopje I took the bus like a real local, I’m trying to manage expenses a little bit… it cost me 8 euros to get there by taxi and 80 eurocents to get home by bus!

Many more stories to tell on my trip through Macedonia but this has again become a way too long blog, so I’ll keep the rest for next time (with no history lesson I promise)! I’m in Thessaloniki, Greece as we speak, travelled from the south of Macedonia to a border town in Greece today and then from there took the train to Thessaloniki. I was immediately reminded of the complicated relationship Greek Macedonians might have with their northern neighbours when I was having lunch in a totally random and deserted restaurant just over the border in Greece (for the first time I had to use the famous hand-and-feet-language to explain that I wished to order lunch and what I was hoping they could make, just to set the bar for the level of English) and when they asked where I was before I said ‘Macedonia’ and the guy corrected me by answering ‘North Macedonia’ in a tone that didn’t leave any room for misinterpretation that I had made a mistake… no fluent English needed to understand that. Just sad.

Next stop is Mykonos where my friend Renske will be joining me from Amsterdam on a 2,5-week Greek island-hopping trip!