Around the Balkans in 20 Days - Part 1

Berlin Schönefeld had just recently opened one of the newest Wizz Air routes, connecting the German capital with the capital of the Republic of Macedonia – Skopje. We departed the few remaining friends, gathered for a short weekend of renowned Berlin nightlife, to depart on our own trip to the states that once made up the central and eastern republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

A short two-hour trip, on our budget yet comfy flight, saw me return to the city on the Vardar for my fourth time. For John, stepping out of arrivals at Alexander the Great Airport was his first visit to any territory once under the rule of Josip Broz Tito. I can only imagine that my feelings of familiarity were equally matched by John’s feelings of intrigue and wonder for the twenty days ahead.

Yet, as we met the hostess and her father for our Airbnb apartment, we soon changed tack as to whether we would arrive in the city centre at all. A well intended instruction of not needing to use our seat belts as we got into the car, feeling obliged to indulge in local practice, soon turned into stomach tightening regret. We awkwardly gripped on to the handrail as we zigzagged between lanes of the motorway whilst hurtling towards the city centre at 100km per hour.

Thankfully, reduced speed limit signs as we entered the city limits seemed to have an effect, slowing down the driving and making it seem less erratic. As we approached the city from the east, the Millennium Cross began to emerge, and turn towards us as we arched around the mountain upon which it was perched. The orange glow of the city soon came into competition with it, distracting us from our friendly chat with our hostess. We covered the usual – what we did for work (us, politics and charity; her, actuary), what brought us here (visiting the region, I mentioned my multiple visits that took us on a tangent), how she learned such good English (TV and school), and where was good to visit. The latter was more to confirm that the research I undertook could be confirmed as fair to explore by a local. A winery, Matkasee, the Millennium Cross, and the Kale Fortress were all met with our hostess’s approval, including directions on how best to get to them.

Once the Kale Fortress appeared to our right, a hundred or so meters above us lit up like a 1920’s cabaret stage, I knew exactly where we were and began to calculate the route that our hosts would take us to the apartment. Although approaching almost midnight, evidence of the summer’s demonstrations against the VMRO-DPMNE Government could be seen. The ‘Colourful Revolution’ saw protesters attack the newly constructed facades of state and other prominent buildings and monuments with a palette of paint worthy of Kandinsky. While I was explaining these events to John, our hostess proudly informed us that her building was one of the few in the centre not to have its façade so appallingly done up to the ‘Neo-Classical’ style now de rigueur thanks to ‘Skopje 2014’. No doubt my ‘tour guide’ act was already becoming tiresome to John. It was past midnight. John must have been thinking “Only 19 days to go!”

We pulled into a triangular courtyard off one of the side streets that leads to Macedonia Square. We collected our stuff, headed out on to the main Macedonia Street, and were met with rows of waited tables bursting in to the street from the abundance of cafes, all pumping out pop music. The cooking of corn on a makeshift barbecue along with the smell of cigarette smoke lingering in the still of the night, both lent themselves to my first noticing the enveloping heat that the evening still possessed. Romance was lost however, when a lone pensioner began wailing on a nearby bench. Over the course of our stay, we would hear her a couple of times, even at this hour, howling without interruption from residents or passersby.

We made our way up to the 6^th and top floor of the apartment block, the entrance to which was opposite the wailing lady, and entered through the door to the left. Our studio apartment was ideal for the two of us, but the balcony that overlooked Macedonia Square was its USP. Once our hostess made arrangements for our morning visit to the police station to record our visit, we unpacked essentials for the morning, turned on the air con, and called it a night.