Category Archives: Macedonia

Macedonian Disneyland

Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, was on my list of must-see places. I headed there from Ohrid on a regular bus. But we are in the Balkans, so on the road the bus broke down, in the afternoon heat we waited for a replacement bus, so instead of three hours as declared the trip took over five. On arrival in Skopje I now had less than half a day to see it. I hastily checked in into a random hostel by the bus station and run to see the city.

The first thing I saw were the bridges over the Vardar river. Each one of them was decorated – I would even say crowded – with incredible number of statues of all kinds of famous and less famous characters.

Мост Око, the Eye Bridge:

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Wonderful Ohrid

On a sunny early morning in Pristina I took a bus bound for Skopje, or Shkupi, as the Albanians would refer to it. Of course the bus was late to Skopje – which is the rule rather than an exception in the Balkans, hence I had programmed it into my planning. In the fifteen minutes left until the next bus to Ohrid I managed to exchanged money, buy my ticket and even drink some coffee with characteristic Macedonian pastry.

I’ve been told more than once that travelling around the Balkans with a car is madness. Basically I must agree that it’s rather impractical, as your own car does make things an order easier and permits you to visit many out-of-the-way places otherwise too hard to reach. And yet with intelligent planning also the public transportation actually allows you to do quite a bit. My blog is one evidence of that.

I arrived in Ohrid in the afternoon, moved in to a room I’d booked a day before and immediately went for a walk around town. Ohrid is located on the shores of a wonderful lake. Let me start from the views of Ohrid as seen from the Car Samoil Castle. Direction South, the Old City:

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