Macedonia – Skopje and Matka Canyon

It’s so nice to just have a chillaxing day! Since we’re staying in the hotel for two nights – only opportunity for the whole tour to do laundry. Woke up very early at 6 am even though the walking tour wasn’t until 9:30 am. Breakfast was already available.

At 9:30, we all congregated for the walking tour. The guide was informative, again full of facts to process. Information overload. What I do remember is the big earthquake of August 1963 which demolished around 80% of the infrastructure around the city. With project 2014, the city established the majestic square and surrounding areas with statues and baroque style buildings.

There are around 120 statues all over, and around 30 along the main pedestrian paths.

At the center is the controversial statue of the Ancient Warrior, which many locals refer to as Alexander the Great. Greece claims him to be Greek and not Macedonian. The other controversy is that Greece protests the name Macedonia, and that Macedonia, as we know today, should be named Northern Region of Macedonia or Former Yugoslav Region of Macedonia. When I checked google maps, it’s actually referred to as FYORM.

We passed through the old stone bridge built by the Ottomans in the 15h century. On the other side of the river was a statue of King Phillip, and below it was Olympia and young Alexander. Further along, was a fountain with a maternity statue. Continuing the same path, we ended up in the Old Bazaar again established by the Ottomans in 15^th century. At the top of the hill, is the Mustafa Pasha Mosque. Pasha was Suleyman’s general. Our last stop was the fortress with a panoramic view of the city.

Matka Canyon was the other highlight of the day. We met at 12 pm to get there. It took a forty-minute bus ride, a ten-minute walk from the carpark, past the river, past the dam, to get to the most stunning view of the canyon. Took a boat ride to the Vrelo Cave. It was a bit of a let-down. From the mouth of the cave, we could only go as deep as around 150 meters. There wasn’t much to see.

I wanted to have a view from the St. Nicholas monastery on top of the hill, but we had to again wait for a boat to cross the river and take us to the starting point of the climb. We were running out of time. So we decided to just have lunch and relax and enjoy the scenery.

We left around 4 pm, and got back to the hotel around 5 pm. Enough time to get refreshed before we headed out to go and watch the game. I was so excited for Croatia and I’m glad the Macedonians supported them. It was more fun to watch and support them this time, than it was with their game against Russia, watching in Bosnia where the Serbs were cheering for Russia.