North Macedonia

Overnight stops (in date order): Struga (x4); Skopje (x3); Struga; Skopje (x2)

As with Lake Shkoder and Montenegro, Albania shares Lake Ohrid with North Macedonia.

North Macedonia is landlocked and so its people treat Lake Ohrid as their seaside.

The small town of Ohrid, a UNESCO Word Heritage Site,

was once a major religious centre for the Balkans; apparently boasting 365 churches.

North Macedonia is largely rural, and remarkably green for a dry August/September. 

This is the time for the tobacco harvest 

and the trees are full of ripe fruit.

That last one is a walnut tree.

Heraclea was founded by Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great;

but is best known for the wonderful mosaics in its Byzantine, early Christian basilica.

The university town of Tetovo is famous for its colourful mosque, originally built in the 15^th Century by the Ottoman Turks,

And the Arabati Baba Tekḱe, a monastery of the Bektashi Muslims.

We spent three days in Skopje with a great view from our hotel room of the Macedonia Square; both by day

and by night.

For the capital of a country of just 2 million people, Skopje has more than its share of grand neo-classical, public buildings.  This is thanks to an ambitious and costly programme of works over the past decade or so – now halted by the Government.

The centre of the city also has very many statues of figures from Macedonia’s past.  The largest is the ‘Warrior on a Horse’ (see photos from our window).  Although this is generally accepted to be Alexander the Great, the North Macedonians cannot openly admit this because of sensitivities with Greece about the country’s name and heritage; which have only been resolved recently.  The Greeks objected to the original proposal of simply calling the country ‘Macedonia’.  Their problem is that Greece has a region of the same name.  Furthermore, this region encompasses much of what was the ancient kingdom of Macedonia – including the birthplace of Alexander and his father, Philip.

That is not to say that the land that is now North Macedonia lacks history – far from it, as shown by its many archaeological sites and the extraordinary bronze-age objects in the Archaeological Museum of Macedonia.

Two very different people who were born on what is now North Macedonian soil are the Emperor Justinium, the sixth Century emperor who was the last to attempt to reunite the eastern and western Roman empires and who built the Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople,

and Mother Theresa.

That’s Danielle outside a chapel built on the site of the house in which she was born.

The Matka Canyon,  

with its caves,

is close to Skopje and a popular day out for North Macedonians.