TauniWe took a MyDayTrip [go to MyDayTrip.com] to Skopje, North Macedonia from Thessaloniki, Greece. MyDayTrip is an amazing service that provides a car and driver to take you from Point A to Point B, and provides a list of up to 6 tourist destinations that you can stop at en route. They operate in many countries around the world, and you can cross borders with them. We selected the tourist sites to stop when we’d initially booked the trips. We chose our stops in order to have a variety of experiences and based on those sites having a “thumbs up” indicator.
This trip to Skopje was our first time with MyDayTrips and we didn’t know what to expect. We were going to have to cross a border with our driver, and the rest of our itinerary depended on the success of this leg of the journey.
Our driver called via Whatsapp in the morning and told us he was delayed as it was a national holiday and the border from North Macedonia into Greece was backed up. We took the additional time to see more of Thessaloniki. We eventually met up with him and we started driving to Skopje. He spoke English and was very professional. He helped us cross the border into North Macedonia and got us to Skopje with no issues.
As we had a 3-hour drive from Thessaloniki to Skopje, North Macedonia, I asked our driver very simple question [or so I thought]: Why is there a “North” Macedonia, but not a West / East or South Macedonia? He explained that North Macedonia is trying to get into the EU, and had to meet some criteria to be allowed in, which included some conditions imposed by Greece which is an EU country. As Greece has a Macedonian region, it didn’t want to have more than one Macedonia – so asked Macedonia the country to change its name. Macedonia renamed itself to North Macedonia. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_naming_dispute
The driver also added that in reality, Bulgaria should be East Macedonia, and northern Greece should be South Macedonia. The following day we started a similar conversation with our Bulgarian MyDayTrips driver on our next leg of the journey, and he said that Macedonia should be part of Bulgaria, and it had been in years past. Interestingly, Greece accuses North Macedonia of promoting a Unified Macedonia, with territorial claims on neighboring countries such as Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, etc. It is clear that regardless of the current borders, there are various [conflicting] points of view of historical and current territorial claims.
Both Bulgaria and Macedonia were previously part of Yugoslavia, which was formed to unite the Southern Slavic countries [Yugo means South] and help protect them between the larger forces of Russia and Germany/Prussia. Resentment grew during the Yugoslavian era because the capital was in Belgrade [of Serbia], and the regions outside of what had been Serbia felt that Yugoslavia was too Serbian-controlled and the other regions weren’t getting their voices heard. There is still resentment against Serbia because of it. Our 1st driver was Serbian, though lived in North Macedonia — he taught us how to say Thank you upon our request. He said “fala”. We said fala once we got to Skopje and were quickly corrected and told not to say “fala” as that was Serbian. We were supposed to say Blago Daran instead.
We had two stops en route to Skopje:
- Stobi Architectural dig. All I can say about this one is … it was 107 degrees and there was very little shade. We were the only two visitors walking around a dig — and we were respectful enough to walk through it – spending about 20 minutes before we scurried back to the car and sat melting in the air conditioning. If it’s a beautiful day, go. If it’s hot, skip it. We tried to change our “stop” at the Stobi dig in favor of the Stobi winery, but unfortunately it was Sunday and a national holiday in North Macedonia, so the winery was closed. Side note: we found Stobi wine in our favorite wine shop in NJ [Gary’s] – and it’s amazing. It’s become one of my favorites.
- Matka canyon. As with most of these stops, I wasn’t sure what to expect. We read the descriptions, but it was a canyon. I couldn’t help but think of the Griswolds on “Vacation” and their stop at the Grand Canyon. Get out, look at the canyon. Take a selfie. Pause and nod your head. Then back to the car. When we went, it was hot, which meant that tons of people from Skopje and the surrounding area had the same idea of visiting the canyon which was cooler. We were in traffic jams on the way to the canyon. We considered bailing, but the driver was a professional and was committed to getting us there. And he did. He dropped us off and said he’d be in the area and to whatsapp him when we were ready to leave. He vaguely pointed to a path and set us on our way. It was extremely nerve-wracking to leave the car because he had all of our luggage in it, and the canyon was so crowded it seemed like it might be hard to find him again. When we’d gone to the architectural dig we were the ONLY people there so we could see his car the whole time. This was an act of faith to walk away from him and our luggage. We set out on the path he’d pointed to, which ran alongside the canyon, and it was beautiful. The path wended its way along the canyon for a mile or two. We walked until we hit a beautiful shaded café and small chapel. Along the road to the path, there were vendors roasting and selling corn on the cob – apparently a celebratory food like popcorn or cotton candy. The idea of eating corn on the cob [hot] that day wasn’t appealing to us, but we were not the target audience. They were selling like hotcakes.
Skopje
There were two Skopjes, old and new. New Skopje was shiny, marbled, huge, and somewhat unreal. It was like walking through an architects’ vision of a city, not a real city where people lived. The statues were too big, the spaces too wide, and marble too white. It had been designed to bring in tourists, and in that it had achieved its objective, at least prior to Covid. Skopje Project 2014 was controversial because of the cost of the investment, which critics said could have been better spent on schools and roads and hospitals, etc. It also criticized by some because of the garish almost-Las Vegas style of the results. The first impression of the main square is beautiful but then you take into account the scale of the statues, which are just enormous, and then the amount of the statues, which seem to be everywhere. The renovations were done to improve upon the old Yugoslav Communist-era brutalist concrete architecture. There were definitely improvements – but perhaps the pendulum swung too far?
A couple of other points from our time in the new area of town:
- The main statue in Macedonia Square is “Warrior on a Horse” wink wink aka Alexander the Great. It was not called Alexander the Great officially because Greece has accused North Macedonia of appropriating Greek symbology. To note the scale of the statue – see the tiny person photobombed into our selfie at the base of the statue.
- Above one of the restaurants there was a huge big screen playing what appeared to be a propaganda film marketing China. Below it there was a bar patio – but we didn’t consider going to it because the film was playing at high volume, and it felt like the noise-punishment experiences I’d had in military survival training.
- Our hotel [Marriott Skopje] was beautiful and modern and conveniently located right off the main square. High recommend!
- We saw a Romani procession – with music, horse-drawn carriage, and beautiful garb.
- We were unable to go to any of the museums because it was a National Holiday in North Macedonia and they were all closed.
Then there was the old part of Skopje – we walked from our hotel to the market district, leaving our hotel early because it threatened to be another hot day [it was August and we were hitting 100+ degree temps] and we wanted to walk while it was still cool. We passed the old-style brutalist post office, saw the castle on the hill, and then rounded a corner into the market.
In the market, we saw a row of small cafes, each with a shade overhead, and we were immediately transported into a different world. The café we stopped in felt like it would be at home on the side of the trails in Nepal. There were a ton of shops featuring jewelry – expensive gold traditional garb and some souvenirs.
Unfortunately we had inadvertently gone to Skopje on a National holiday, which meant that all of the museums including (Mother Theresa, Holocaust Memorial Museum, Museum of Macedonian Struggle, were all closed. It gave us the opportunity for some down time after having traveled to 3 cities in 3 days. We spent some time in the hotel, and then found some nice cafes in the main square.
