Visiting One of Europe’s Weirdest Capitals: Skopje, Macedonia
Visiting One of Europe’s Weirdest Capitals: Skopje, Macedonia
The second to last stop on my tour of the Balkans was Skopje (scope-yay), the capital of Macedonia that has recently earned a reputation as one of Europe’s weirdest capital cities. I love all things kooky, so I was drawn in by Skopje’s ability to make me go “huh, what the heck is going on here?”
When I got into Skopje, it was mad chaos. Pope Francis of all people was visiting the city on that very day, so most things were shut down and huge crowds were occupying the city center. Things were a mess, so I decided to hop a bus out of the city. My hostel recommended visiting the Matka Canyon, so I asked for the Matka Canyon bus at the bus station and waited for the 60 bus.
An upside of the pope’s visit was that all of the buses were free that day, so I was able to just hop on and end up at the canyon 45 minutes later. It ended up being a good, spontaneous decision, because the canyon was beautiful.
To further explore the canyon, I decided to go to on a boat ride. They have a couple of options available for visitors – a 30 minute boat ride for 200 denars ($3.60) or an hour long boat ride to the Vrelo cave for 400 denars ($7.25). I decided to spring for the hour long boat ride to the cave, and I ended up on a boat with a large group of French retirees.
The ride was nice and peaceful, and the walk through the cave was nice. There were huge stalagmites and stalactites that were formed by the water of the man-made Matka Lake. They were lit by a rainbow of lights and I leapt around the cave while the retirees slowly made their way slowly through it.
Inside Vrelo Cave
The entrance to Vrelo Cave
One of the most interesting parts of the cave is that the underwater portion of it is at least 230 meters deep – and underwater diving teams are still trying to go deeper. It is the deepest cave in the Balkans and the second deepest in Europe.
Things got really interesting, though, when my boat driver started flirting with me. He wanted me to stay overnight in his lake cabin and go hiking with him to a monastery up in the cliffs of the canyon. He even offered to give me a ride back to Skopje. Real funny. The French retirees got a good kick out of it. Have no fear, though, for I am a smart female solo traveler and I shot him down.
When we got back to the dock, I bid my boat driver adieu. And by that I mean that I walked quickly away and made my way back to the bus stop to catch the next bus back to the city. Despite the flirty boat driver, the Matka Canyon was great and makes for a wonderful day trip from Skopje. Visitors can also hike or kayak, so it’s easy to make a full day out of it.
The next day in the city was far less hectic, so I started my day with a free walking tour of the city with Skopje Walks. Our guide Miha was absolutely wonderful – he was impossibly energetic and managed to make a 3.5 hour walking tour of Skopje interesting – the good, the bad, and the odd. He took us to all of the major sites of the city – the Mother Teresa Memorial House, the main square, the Old Bazaar, the Fortress Kale, and the hundreds of statues all over the city.
The Mother Teresa Memorial House of Skopje
The Alexander the Great statue in the main square of the city
The Kale Fortress
The statues and new buildings are all part of the Skopje 2014 project, a government project started in 2010 that was meant to revive the city and foster national pride (and end by 2014, hence the name. It actually ended in 2018, though). The project has sparked a lot of controversy because 80 million to 500 million euros that the country doesn’t really have has been spent erecting dozens of statues that have very little to do with anything Macedonian, like one of a bull in front of a shoe store and another just of a woman talking on a phone. Our tour guide was very vocal about not liking the statues, and he believes that the government spent way more on the project than they are letting on. It is the statues that contribute the most to the weirdness of Skopje.
The best part of the tour was that we had several strays tagging along with us the entire time. Miha explained that the city has a lot of stray pups that are well cared for by the state, and that they often like to treat the tour group as their pack. Funnily enough, all of the dogs had been rounded up for the pope’s visit, and they had just been released back into the city that morning. There was also a stop along the way to try Macedonian rakija, which basically tastes like gasoline, but it was a nice stop nonetheless.
One of the pups that joined our tour
One of five dogs that joined our pack for the tour
One of the many strays in Macedonia
Macedonian rajika on our tour of the city
After the tour, I headed back to the bus station to make my way out of the city again. I took cable cars in Sarajevo and Tirana, and I had my sights set on another in Skopje. About 30 minutes outside of the city is the Millennium Cross cable car that takes visitors up to the Vodno Mountain, where the huge Millennium Cross looms over the city.
To get to the cable car station, one can take the 25 bus to it’s last stop. Bus tickets on a normal day that the pope isn’t there costs 60 denars, or about a dollar. However, my tour guide told me that tourists can pretty much just ride the bus without a ticket, so that’s what I did to and from the cable car. Not sure I can strictly recommend this, but it did work for me. The cable car itself costs 100 denar ($1.80), making it the cheapest cable car I took in the Balkans. From May to September, the cable car runs from 10 am to 7:45 pm.
When I got to the top of the Vodno Mountain after about a five minute ride, I walked around the area, admiring the massive cross and the beautiful mountains. The Millennium Cross was built in 2002 to celebrate 2000 years of Christianity in Macedonia, and it is one of the tallest crosses in the world.
Riding the cable car up to Vodno Mountain
Admiring the stunning view of the mountains
The Millennium Cross
After riding the cable car back down, I made my way back into the city, where I ordered sushi to my hostel (it was sooooo good after not having sushi for months) and then rested up for my bus ride to meet Emily in Sophia bright and early the next morning!
I feel like I definitely could have used another day in Skopje to wander around and look at more statues, as well as check out some of the city’s museums. But, I am thankful for the time I had here – I liked it for the beautiful canyon within 15 kilometers of the city center, my amazing tour guide, and yes, the wacky statues. The city certainly lived up to it’s weird reputation, and I loved it for it.