Godspeed to Olympos, Thu, 07 Sep 2023 | written by Simon
Simon at a City, Lake, Museum in Europe, North Macedonia

This morning I found out once again how awesome the Baron is. Someone was walking around and even knocking and calling, I’m not sure who or why. I didn’t give sign of life and they just left. Minutes later I get open a door to fantastic view of the city!

I drove down to town in search of a new SIM card. It’s crazy how cheap they are here: 100GB of data and unlimited calls for two weeks cost… about four euros? Good luck finding that in Germany!

I started on the South side of the Vardar river, checking out the almost finished, massive gold plated Church of Saint Constantine and Helena. I have to say that Scopje does have some pretty impressive oomph when it comes to designing new buildings – and I was about to find out that this was just a tiny part of it!

Next to the church, there are two pretty funky buildings. Mother Theresa’s postmodern house has some character. But the other is an utter jewel – the Dali Apartments built in a very eclectic, Art Nouveauish style that’s actually a hostel available for very reasonable prices! If I knew of it, I would have totally stayed a night! Next time.

As I walked on, I quickly found that this entire city it’s absolutely overrun by sculptures. Sculptures on every corner, sometimes five times per corner. There is the massive Alexander on a horse, there is Phillip II pointing in the distance, there are bridges covered in sculptures, there are lions, there are comrades signing important documents, there are Muses, there are… they’re everywhere! I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Skopje has more marble than living inhabitants!

After it turned out that I can’t visit a mosque because Allah can’t bear my crop top, I went to the ruins of the Kale Fortress. It’s free to go in, and it’s unkept, overgrown, and fantastically wild. There are even some broken artillery batteries in places you shouldn’t go to! Did I go where I shouldn’t? Oh well, there were no signs and lack of paths or things becoming more and more overgrown are an invitation for a Simon. I am very happy to see the Serbian wildness continue here.

Then, I almost got lost in the streets of the Old Bazaar. It’s a whole district of old, low houses with shops and stalls everywhere. There is a huge number of jewellery shops here, but it seems that you can get just about anything.

I managed to get some nice food though and went to see the famous Skopje modern antiquities. They built a number of very modern buildings in a very classical style: a combination of stone, concrete, and Glass, columns and glass panes. I have to say that I don’t hate it. It is definitely a much more interesting way to bring antiquity back to life then what I’ve seen in other places. On the way, I went into the National Gallery which is hosted and the old Muslim Hamas and to the archaeological Museum in one of the antique modern buildings. In there, I learned about a nearby archeological excavation site of Stobi, which will now be my plan for tomorrow.

I finished the day by driving to Canyon Matka. A dam on the river Treska created a sizable lake wedged between two mountain ranges. You can walk around, but you can also hire a kayak which I promptly did, paddling up and down the lake for an hour. It was just about enough time to get to the half of it though!