North Macedonia

After exploring Pristina in Kosovo, we took a bus to the capital of North Macedonia, Skopje. We arrived in the city, only to find our accommodation had been cancelled at the last minute! Luckily we found somewhere else to stay quite fast, and the host was very flexible and allowed us to check in straight away. We went for a walk around Skopje, which was a very quirky and interesting city. In 2014 the government had decided to implement a controversial scheme to renovate the city. This consisted of building hundreds of huge statues of famous Macedonians, putting 'historic' facades over the front of many buildings, and building fancy neoclassical buildings and bridges over its central river. Many locals were against the revamp, as it may have cost up to 1 billion euros, which they understandably feel would have been better spent elsewhere. We were slightly bemused by the city, but enjoyed finding the gigantic statues in the new part of the city, as well as exploring the Old Bazaar, which dated from the Ottoman empire. 

We spent the next morning working on our sailing course, before heading out for some lunch. We found a restaurant overlooking the gigantic statue of a man on horseback that may or may not have been Alexander the Great (apparently North Macedonia have a dispute with Greece over his heritage). We also went to a local fruit and veg market with the idea to buy ingredients for dinner, but the market sellers looked at us very strangely when we tried buying individual peppers and tomatoes, as they seemed to usually sell in bulk. We had to give up on our market attempt, and found a supermarket instead! The following day we took a day trip from Skopje to the nearby Matka canyon. We went looking for a local bus that we heard went that way, and had a confusing hunt for the right stop. Eventually we discovered that you have to buy the ticket from an old yellow bus that had been converted into a ticket office! The bus dropped us off near the canyon, and we found a kayak rental place. We hired a double kayak and went paddling along the canyon, with cliff edges towering high above (thanks to Jilly for the honeymoon gift). It was a very peaceful excursion with barely anyone else on the water. We paddled to a nearby cave, only accessible by boat, and went into a surprisingly extensive cave system, which we found out may be one of the deepest underwater cave systems in the world. We then paddled back, and went for a coffee at a restaurant inside another cave before catching the bus back to Skopje.

Next we took a bus from Skopje to Lake Ohrid. We found Ohrid to be a charming town on the edge of the expansive lake, which is shared with Albania and is one of Europe’s deepest lakes. The area has an interesting history, with Roman, Slavic and Ottoman influences and lots of archeological sites. We explored the town that afternoon, first heading up to the castle overlooking the town, then to a variety of Byzantine era churches (a very distinctive style with beautiful patterned brickwork) and down along a wooden boardwalk stretching over the edge of the lake. 

For the next couple of days we decided to get some more sailing course theory under our belt, and dedicated the days to that. However, we booked some fun activities in the evenings as a reward. The first evening we did a wine tasting experience organised by a local wine shop, which only served North Macedonian wines. The guide was very knowledgeable and personable, and we got to try 3 different wines and some rakija, paired with some local cheeses and meat. We discovered a new favourite grape variety called Temjanika, which was a fruity and unusual white. We had a bit too much to drink and were quite tipsy by the end of the evening! The next afternoon we decided to rent a paddleboard and head out onto the lake. It was very relaxing and beautiful, with the expansive lake surrounded by mountains. We then went to a local restaurant by the lake for dinner, which had a nice ambiance but quite disappointing food. We couldn’t resist going back to the wine shop from the previous night for a drink, where we tried some more delicious wine and bought an expensive (by our standards!) bottle of Temjanika wine to take away with us. Although tempting, we chose not to drink it that night due to an early bus back into southern Albania the next morning!