North Macedonia – Part Deux

With the capital city, Skopje, in our sights we stopped briefly in the crazily busy city of Tetova to see the famous and impressive 19^th century reconstruction of the Painted Mosque (or Pasha’s Mosque), before carefully reversing back out of a road (with the unsolicited ‘help’ of two locals) onto a busy roundabout and getting the hell out of dodge.

Just before you get to Skopje if you are travelling from the East, is Matka Canyon.  Due to its proximity to the Capital it is a popular destination with limited parking so we made sure we arrived early to avoid disappointment.  The water of the dammed Treska River is a beautiful turquoise blue and we had a fun couple of hours kayaking through the canyon to visit Cave Vrelo – one of a network of caves thought to be among the deepest in Europe.

The focus here however seems to be the boat tours.  When we asked about the kayaking we were told to walk down to the platform where someone would help us.   After waiting for 5 minutes or so and with no-one in sight, we helped ourselves to a couple of life jackets, untied a kayak and set off. 

While there is no assistance in taking the kayak at the start, the situation is even worse when you arrive at the cave.  There seems to be little thought as to how, in a kayak, you access the cave.  It looks like there was once a pier but the broken debris was piled onto the steep grainy walls of the river and so it took some very careful manoeuvring and paddling around to find somewhere we could safely get ashore before then clambering over the debris to reach the boat pier and stairs.

The benefit of kayaking was that we had the cave to ourselves until right at the end when a boat tour turned up but by that point we were already on our way out.  

After a leisurely paddle back we were actually greeted at the platform by a couple of people who, despite not bothering to come and assist us when we left, knew exactly what time we had departed to charge us the correct fee.  Still we had a good time and afterwards found a nice spot to park up for the night down by the river and away from the comings and goings of the busy car park.

The capital of North Macedonia is called Skopje and it is an extraordinary city. Around 65% of the city’s buildings were destroyed by a massive earthquake in 1963. This led to a rebuilding programme of large buildings in a modernist style.

This was then followed in the 2010’s by a programme of building monuments and statues throughout the city as well as large classically styled public buildings which were implemented by the prime minister at the time, Nikola Gruevski.

It gives the centre of the city a weird feel of a fake classical city but the statues are certainly impressive.

Just a stones throw from the planned but attractive classical centre is the real heart of the city in the Carsija area. Here the narrow cobbled streets bustle with people and there is a large food market.

This area is full of ancient mosques and feels like a real lived city as opposed to the centre which has the feel of a set from a dystopian future.

On a hill overlooking the town is the Trvdina Kale fortress, built in the 5^th century, which gives good views over the city but only the walls are left now and there is nothing to really see inside them.

After spending a full day in Skopje we drove back to the nearby Matka canyon for another peaceful night by the river. We were up early the next morning to drive to the Northern end of the country to visit the Kokino Observatory, a Bronze Age archaeo-astronomical site. The site was used for a number of rituals at different times of the year and notches were cut in the rocks where the suns rays outline key points at certain times over a cycle that lasted 19 lunar years.

There is a “throne” for four people where the rising sun would mark out the four rulers one by one on a certain day of the year. We had fun trying to line up the notches in the rock with the different times of year and where they would light up but a few more photos on the information boards would be helpful.

After leaving the Kokino Observatory we moved a little south to Kuklica which is small area with some interesting geological features where “rock dolls” have been created by erosion and are thought to be 30 million years old.

Much like those to be found in Utah in the USA but on a much smaller scale.

Surprisingly we were greeted by a British accent and we had a good conversation with a guy who runs the site with his wife. They had moved to North Macedonia a few years previously and he seemed pretty pleased to meet some fellow Brits for a chat.

We eventually stopped for the night at Rock Land Camp in the town of Demir Kapija. This was near to our destination for the following day so a convenient stopover. The area has lots of hiking and some great climbing so although we didn’t stay long enough to explore, it’s definitely somewhere to return to in the future.

It was my birthday while we were in North Macedonia so Sarah organised a night out at one of North Macedonia’s top winery’s, Popova Kula. They allowed campers to stay overnight in their car park so we could have a good night out and not have to worry about getting home.

We had a lovely evening at the winery. They even had entertainment in the form of some local children folk dancing and of course the wine was excellent. We splashed out on a much nicer meal than we would normally have, the highlight of which was definitely the huge starter in the form of a charcuterie plate featuring local meats and a generous basket of warm bread – absolutely delicious. To be honest, we didn’t need anything else after that, so we were pretty full by the end of the meal!

The next morning we were a little sluggish getting going but we eventually managed to set off, heading South towards Greece.

We stopped for a remote night in an area below the Treskavec monastery which sits on top of a bare rocky mountaintop. Although much of the monastery has been damaged by fire, the inside of the 14^th century central church, which is being restored, still includes some impressive frescoes.

The site has been used as a place of worship since Roman times and there is a still a monk in residence here – plus some chickens and two small dogs.

We left the peak of the Treskavec monastery on a cloudy and dull day and headed to the mountain town of Krusevo which was really shrouded in cloud, to see the Ilinden uprising monument. This space age construction commemorates the 1903 uprising which was the country’s first step towards independence, although only lasting 10 days before being ended by the Ottoman empire.

Unfortunately visibility was limited although we did get to see the monument and had a look around inside. It is in need of some TLC though, as testified by the peeling paint and puddles in the interior from the leaking roof.

Our final stop in North Macedonia was the town of Bitola. Bitola is a charming town but the real draw here is the old Roman ruins at Heraclea Lyncestis. The site is small but has some excellent mosaics and a partially restored theatre. The city was important for trading from around 200 BC to the 4^th century but unfortunately was then sacked by the Goths and abandoned.

The city of Bitola is known as the city of consuls as during Ottoman times many European countries had their consulates there. Today the city is very much one of faded glories with lots of 18^th and 19^th century grand townhouses looking worse for wear.

It is one of those cities where nothing is particularly spectacular but it’s just a nice place and we spent a few hours wandering around. We visited the big central market and walked around the Stara Carsija, Bazaar area, as well as the main shopping street where we stopped to people watch from one of the many cafes.

Bitola was our last stop in North Macedonia and we had thoroughly enjoyed this country. It feels like a bridge between the other Balkan countries and the EU and we will certainly be back to explore in more depth. But next for us is Greece, our ultimate goal of this trip.