After waking up this morning, me
and Liam went over to the train station. It was my understanding that we had to
reserve seats. Upon arrival, I asked the lone worker if she spoke English. ‘A
little’. Great. So I asked her if I have to reserve a seat to Nis. She said no. I then asked her what time the
train was tomorrow evening. She replied with 9 o’clock. I thanked her then
left. We noticed a left luggage room too, so we can use it tomorrow. Walking back to the hotel, to
drop off the train tickets I took with me, I began to question her train time.
So back at the hotel I checked. Indeed there was a train, but at 09:00! The
evening train was at 20:45. Tomorrow a.m. I will ask again.
We then walked into town, to the
square, then up to the Old Railway Station, now a museum, and went to the
Ramstore. `Liam exchanged money, and we had a frappe each. Cold coffee is
lovely. We then continued along this road, turning right at the European Union
building. We then hit pedestrian roadworks, and with Liam wearing flip-flops,
we danced around the road. We then turned right again and back to the square. We decided to cross the river
over the (thrice?) re-build Roman bridge. Looking back at the square just
reaffirmed my dislike of all the monuments being erected.
We walked past an old
Orthodox church on our left, and the Daut Pasha – the former bathhouses. We
then walked up a hill, and this felt like a proper Ottoman experience. Low
buildings, 2 storey’s, but lower than anything back home. The vendors putting their
wares on display. The street, or lane, was cobbled, and it was a mixture of
shops and café’s. Very quaint. We kept walking up until it became quiet. So we
turned around, saw the sign for the Kale Fortress and wound round another lane
to the right, before reaching the buttress of one of the towers.
We followed a
wall along to some steps and climbed them to an open park, with the walls
stretching from left to right about 200 yards away. We walked up to a gate,
then along the wall to the entrance. However, a man in a hut at the entrance
squeezed the one word of English he knew. Closed. So we made out way past the
Mustapha Pasha, down a straight road to steps that led to a ‘bridge’ over the
bypass. It began to rain then.
So we hurried, poor Liam in his flip-flops, to
the Soviet shopping mall. After 20 minutes of wandering around, we located a
café and ordered soft drinks. It was only 11:00. We left after 40 minutes,
trying for a while to catch the waitress’s attention to pay. I was feeling
exhausted with this stomach bug, so we went back to the hostel. I must have
slept for 3 hours but intermittently woke up. I decided to eat the pretzels we
bought at the Ramstore earlier to try and quell it.
After much cajoling by Liam, we
left our hole to go to the Velo Centre, near the train station. Similar to the
Ramstore, it had a supermarket, a food court and shops. I decided I needed
salt, so we got some fries from McDonalds (Only 2 countries visited, and 2
McDonald’s to match). We then walked along the river, past the Irish pub in the
shopping centre and the various bars and restaurants located between the
Soviet-era construction and the river.
As I bought postcards, I wanted to cut across ‘Makedonija’ to the post
office, but got cut short. So we went to a café call Trend. Funnily enough, it
was where my colleague from my former employment and I had dinner 2 ½ years
ago. We lazed there for an hour before heading back to the hostel.
No comments:
Post a Comment