Travel Tips: City trip to Skopje and Macedonia National Park Matka

The trip from Lake Orhid north to Skopje is three hours through a mountain pass as the highway is still being built.  The drive is pleasant with stops and our tour took us en route half way to the National Park of Matka.  It is a river and canyon area where you can either walk to a small church at the end of the canyon or take a boat on crystal clear water through the canyon. The boat was obviously the better option in the heat of the day and it only costs 4 euro for the row out of 15 minutes and the return.

 

The Orthodox church built almost into the cliff

 Mountains alongside the river

 

Rock pools at the entrance

  

The entrance

 The canyon

 

Beautiful natural scenery and stark green fresh water against blue blue skies

  

On the walk back, lovely restaurants with cool water showers raining down from the roof

Arriving in Skopje the first city stop is the old train station and clock  which has been kept in its original partly collapsed state from the 1963 July earthquake.  It now serves as a memorial to the disaster and the  clock on the central facade which stopped at 5:17, the exact time the earthquake struck has not been changed. High on the Vodno mountain above is a huge cross, commemorating two thousand years of Christianity, built for the millennial change.  Due to the summer heat and holiday time, Skopje itself was quiet and deserted, for most are on summer vacation and so apart from an Italian lunch in a cool air-conditioned modern mall and viewing the main square with its gigantic monuments and fountains, we spent the rest of the day in museums.

 

The main square fountain monument is three stories high with 4 lions at the bottom roaring water

 

Soldiers around the pillar in ochestrated and timed water shapes and curved fountain sprays

 

With a horse on top of this final plate at the top of the pillar

 

A number of these gigantic lantern poles around the main square  

 

Vadar river  

 

The Stone Bridge  and view of the Opera House

 

Statue of a swimmer about to dive on the Stone Bridge embankment

The Mother Teresa's Memorial House is special! Quaint, full of light and next to a huge orthodox church of 3 golden domes the St. Constantine and Helena, the memorial of Teresa shows famous photographs, her bed, simple house set-up and of course her Nobel Peace prize award given in Oslo back in 1979. It's a charming little place, with a specific aura and provides a glimpse in the personal life of Mother Teresa, who was born in Skopje.  She is buried in India by the way, at her request.

 
From the outside  

 

The windows from the inside

 

A side window with her wax figure and a small pulpit

  

 The outside walls, embroidered pillow case on her bed, and the Nobel Peace Prize

 

St Constantine and Helena Orthodox church 

The main Macedonia square in Skopje is spectacular with massive fountains all spurting and spraying water in shapes and curves at differently timed intervals. Children play on the square pavement fountains just before the Stone Bridge, another landmark, and behind it lies the monumental main city museum. It has a cultural air Skopje of a long and great history and I can imagine in winter months when locals return, that the 800 thousand population make it a lively place. The Stone Bridge passes over the river Vadar and further on are another two small churches with tall towers and clocks and behind that the famous Turkish markets.  Also in the area a small 15th century Ottoman mosque

 

The main city museum left and bottom right another part of the old city wall 

 

The modern on the corner of the Stone Bridge 

The opera house is just over the bridge and left in a monumental but modern style building around the corner from the Macedonia struggle for independence  museum. The latter was also spectacular. A wax figure museum with huge wrought iron decorated doors has a domed stain glass ceiling and marble staircase. The hour tour leads you through Macedonian history where they managed to free themselves from  social, political, cultural and military conflicts between Greek and Bulgarian subjects living in Ottoman Macedonia between 1893 and 1908. The conflict was part of a wider rebel war in which revolutionary organizations of Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs all fought over Macedonia. Macedonia also managed finally to break free from the Ottomans but then along came the Russians, then the Germans and of course the recent Yugoslav war in 1990.  Finally, free of all past enemies, the Republic of North Macedonia exists and they are a proud nation who revel in their past struggles and appreciate the resulting culture and independence because of the long hard fought wars.

  

The opera house

 

Domed ceiling, floor and staircase as you enter the museum. Further inside no pictures allowed

The drive back to Orhid we did through a beautiful storm and the skies and landscape views were gorgeous. There were at least 20 mosques, sometimes with just one minaret dotted along the countryside villages.

Skopje is definitely worth visiting if you visit Macedonia. It is a cultural city, with much history and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. In cafes, restaurants, museums and shops the service was friendly, helpful and they spoke good English.  Including this guy :) ... Do visit the museums too, they were pretty special.  Naturally, there are also poorer areas as leaving the city we passed this ghetto with an old blue volkswagen parked haphazardly on a roof.  All very interesting! Happy travels....